Robertson, S. 2018. How do we know they hurt? Assessing acute pain in cats. Veterinary Record 183(24), 748-749.

To treat pain, we must look for it, recognise it and in some way measure it; this requires validated tools that work in a busy clinical environment. In addition to preventing suffering, effective treatment of acute pain is ‘good medicine’ because it enhances healing, decreases morbidity and prevents the development of persistent postoperative pain. If we ask the question ‘Can we treat pain in cats?, the answer should be yes. Our pain management toolbox for cats is fuller and more diverse than it has ever been. It contains new feline-approved analgesic drugs and more clinicians are mastering locoregional anaesthesia. However, administration of an analgesic does not mean our job is done; we must have an outcome measure of our treatment. Veterinary surgeons and nurses work with animals every day and likely feel confident that they ‘know what pain looks like’. However, there is wide interobserver disagreement when simple unidimensional scales such as visual analogue and numerical rating scales are used. These scales are highly subjective and only assess one dimension of pain, the sensory (intensity, location) component, missing the affective and psychological aspects. If we do not ‘get it right’, many cats will not receive the care they need and deserve. Because pain is multidimensional and unique to each individual and represents an internal state, it is not a simple task to know how a non-verbal patient feels.4 It takes time and hard work to create meaningful pain assessment tools. This paper describes the UNESP-Botucatu Multidimensional Composite Pain Scale and the Glasgow Feline Composite Pain Scale.