For example, a person with a certain pain profile might benefit most from relaxation techniques, while another patient might get more relief from using attention diversion or imagery. Dalton refined the questions for the BPP by testing them on more than 600 people with different kinds of pain. Since she published the work in 1994, other researchers have also begun using and testing the scale. After the patients try these methods, Dalton will evaluate whether the treatments indicated by the BPP were the right ones. Patients' family members also feel the toll of illness and hospitalization-especially when the patient is an infant.
Parents rate the events they find most stressful, such as seeing their babies with tubes inserted.
Then doctors, nurses, and other health professionals can try to reduce parents' distress. Miles developed the PSS with two other nursing faculty-Sandra Funk, professor, and John Carlson, research assistant professor. Based on parents' answers on the PSS, doctors or nurses may also change rules so that parents can visit more often or perform some routine care tasks for their babies. Researchers around the world are using the scale to improve care in intensive care units, Miles said. It has been translated into German, Japanese, Finnish, Icelandic, Spanish, Chinese, and Portuguese.