Description of Pain Using the Wong-Baker Scale

To provide the best treatment, health care providers must be able to assess how much pain their patients are in. Some patients may have difficulty communicating their level of pain in words. The Wong-Baker Faces Pain Rating Scale can help these patients to communicate the degree of pain they're feeling.

Faces

• The Wong-Baker Faces Pain Rating Scale utilizes a series of six cartoon faces. At the far left is a happy face. The face at the far right is weeping. The expressions on the four intervening faces get progressively sadder as you move to the right.

Numbers

• A number appears below each of the six faces. Below the happy face at the far left is a 0, while the face at the far right is marked 5. The faces between are marked 1 though 4, respectively.

Descriptions

• Below each face and number is a brief description. Moving from left to right, the descriptions read: "no hurt," "hurts little bit," "hurts little more," "hurts even more," "hurts whole lot" and "hurts worst."

Patient Populations

• Although the Wong-Baker scale was developed for work with children, it has also come to be used successfully by health care providers and caregivers working with patients who are elderly or cognitively impaired. It is also useful when there are language barriers between providers and patients.

How It Is Used

• Health care providers or caregivers can point to each face on the scale and say the words beneath it. Then patients can choose the face that corresponds to what they are feeling.