Use of Baxter Animated Retching Faces (BARF) Scale to Measure Nausea in Children Who Speak Spanish

Postoperative Nausea and Vomiting Clinical Trial

Official title: Use of Baxter Animated Retching Faces (BARF) Scale to Measure Nausea in Children Who Speak Spanish

Status Completed

Clinical Trial Summary

Pediatric research in the management of nausea has been limited by the absence of a reliable method to quantify the intensity of this subjective symptom. In adults, the visual analog scale (VAS) is an accurate tool, but this has not been shown to be reliable in young children. A scale is a series of points made on a line that will be used for measurement; a mark on the far left of the line shows little pain and the mark on the far right means alot of pain.

Clinical Trial Description

By default the most common objective outcome measure used in pediatric studies has been the incidence and number of emetic episodes. This measure, however, correlates poorly with the somatic subjective symptom of nausea. Apfel et al have shown that 30-40% of adult patients undergoing surgery have post discharge nausea and / or vomiting while 12% have vomiting. These data on nausea in adults were based on a visual analog scale for nausea. There are no data on the incidence of postoperative nausea in children since the severity of symptoms are difficult to measure as younger children are known to be unable to use the VAS reliably. Recently a pictorial scale for measuring nausea, the Baxter Animated Retching Faces (BARF) scale, has been developed and shown to have construct, content and convergent validity as an instrument to measure nausea in children. This was a two center study that was limited to children who could speak English. The clinical usefulness of this scale in determining the incidence of postoperative and post-discharge nausea in children has yet to be determined including the lowest age where it can be used reliably, the score associated with a patient's perception of a need for treatment, the minimum change in the scores of clinical relevance and the test-retest reliability when nausea is rated as not having changed. The score has also not been validated in children who speak Spanish. This study is designed to provide the missing information and will specifically look at the Spanish speaking population. ;

Related Conditions & MeSH terms

• Nausea
• Postoperative Nausea and Vomiting
• Vomiting

• NCT number: NCT02007109
• Study type: Observational
• Source: Baylor College of Medicine
• Status: Completed
• Start date: January 2014
• Completion date: September 7, 2018