SOCRATES (pain assessment)

SOCRATES is a mnemonic acronym used by emergency medical services, physicians, nurses, and other health professionals to evaluate the nature of pain that a patient is experiencing.

Uses

SOCRATES is used to gain an insight into the patient's condition, and to allow the health care provider to develop a plan for dealing with it.^[1][2] It can be useful for differentiating between nociceptive pain and neuropathic pain.^[3]

Adverse effects

SOCRATES only focuses on the physical effects of pain, and ignores the social and emotional effects of pain.^[4]

Procedure

SOCRATES^[1][2]

Letter	Aspect	Example Questions
S	Site	Where is the pain? Or the maximal site of the pain.
O	Onset	When did the pain start, and was it sudden or gradual? Include also whether it is progressive or regressive.
C	Character	What is the pain like? An ache? Stabbing?
R	Radiation	Does the pain radiate anywhere?
A	Associations	Any other signs or symptoms associated with the pain?
T	Time course	Does the pain follow any pattern?
E	Exacerbating / relieving factors	Does anything change the pain?
S	Severity	How bad is the pain?

History

SOCRATES is often poorly used by health care providers.^[5] Although pain assessments usually cover many or most of the aspects, they rarely included all 8 aspects.^[5]

See also

• History of presenting complaint
• Medical history
• OPQRST