Non-Communicating Children’s Pain Checklist (NCCPC)
What It Measures
The NCCPC is a way of answering a question that cannot be asked directly: is this child in pain? It is for children who cannot say so — because of cognitive impairment, because they have no speech, or because they are too young to explain.
An observer watches the child over a two-hour period and then records how often each of thirty specific behaviours appeared, from not at all to very often. The items sit in seven categories: vocal, social, facial, activity, body and limbs, physiological, and eating and sleeping. Higher totals mean more pain behaviour. Crucially, the observer does not need to know the child — the checklist describes what a person in pain looks like rather than how this particular child usually behaves.
Further Reading
Additional Notes
Licensing Notes: The checklist may be freely copied for clinical use or for research funded by not-for-profit agencies. For-profit agencies must contact the author. A fuller manual is available from Dr. Breau on request.