OPQRST
OPQRST is an acronym scheme that is used in the healthcare sector for the precise determination of a patient's symptoms and their course in the event of an acute illness. Each letter stands for an important set of questions in the context of the pain history . Typically, the OPQRST scheme is in the rescue services , together with a structured investigation apparatus and the SAMPLER scheme in the context of the point S performed.
application
The parts of the algorithm are:
- Onset / beginning
- When did the pain start? What did the patient do (active, inactive, stressed) when the pain started. Did the pain come on suddenly or gradually? Is the pain part of a chronic problem?
- Provocation, palliation / reinforcement, relief
- What aggravates or relieves the pain. (Movement, rest, specific position, palpation )
- Quality / quality
- The patient describes his pain. The questions can be open ("Can you describe the pain for me?") Or closed. Ideally, the quality assessment results in a detailed description of the pain such as stabbing, blunt, breaking, burning or tearing together with the pattern such as pulsating, constant or increasing.
- Region, radiation / region, charisma
- Do the symptoms only relate to a certain region of the body or do they radiate to other regions? This allows clues for a possible heart attack to be found, which can radiate into the left arm or into the jaw.
- Severity / strength
- How severe are the complaints? A scale of 0 to 10 is commonly used, with zero being no pain and ten being the worst pain imaginable. Since the perception of pain is very subjective, it is always up to the health staff to assess this information by the patient.
- Time / temporal course
- Have such complaints occurred before? Have the symptoms changed over time? How long has the pain existed?