Agreement between veterinary students and anesthesiologists regarding postoperative pain assessment in dogs

Objective To determine the levels of agreement among first- and second-year veterinary students and experienced anesthesiologists in assessing postoperative pain in dogs from video-recordings. Study design Cross-sectional study. Subjects Twenty-seven veterinary students, five anesthesiologists and 13 canine clinical patients. Methods Prior to their enrolment in a core anesthesia course, veterinary students volunteered to watch 13 90 second videos of dogs. Dogs were hospitalized in an intensive care unit after a variety of surgical procedures. Students were asked to score the level of the dogs' pain using the Dynamic Interactive Visual Analog Scale and the Short Form of the Glasgow Composite-Measure Pain Scale. The same videotapes were scored by five board-certified anesthesiologists. The differences and agreement between the ratings of anesthesiologists and students, and first- and second-year students were determined with Mann-Whitney U-tests and Fleiss' or Cohen's kappa, respectively. Results Pain scores assigned by students and anesthesiologists differed significantly (p < 0.01). Students assigned higher pain scores to dogs that were given low pain scores by anesthesiologists, and lower pain scores to dogs deemed to be in more pain by anesthesiologists. On average, students assigned higher scores on both scales. Conclusions and clinical relevance Veterinary students early in their training assigned pain scores to dogs that differed from scores assigned by experienced anesthesiologists.