Physicians’ and nurses’ experience of using the Abbey Pain Scale (APS) in people with advanced cancer: a qualitative content analysis

BACKGROUND: The Abbey Pain Scale (APS), an observational scale used to assess pain in people with end-stage dementia, is also widely used in Sweden to assess pain in patients with advanced cancer. It is unclear whether the APS is appropriate in this context. This study aims to explore physicians’ and nurses’ experiences of using a Swedish translation of the APS (the APS-SE) in people with advanced cancer. METHODS: Conventional qualitative content analysis was used to analyse interviews with physicians (n = 6) and nurses (n = 6) working in oncology and specialised palliative care about their experiences of using the APS-SE. RESULTS: Three categories were created: fills a need, not always on target, and does not fully suit the clinical situation. Participants reported that although the APS-SE provides support in a challenging situation, it sometimes misses the mark: it does not distinguish well between pain and other types of suffering and its pain score tends not to reflect professionals’ intuitive perceptions of patients’ suffering. Some parts of the APS-SE were not considered useful, and others were perceived as ethically questionable. CONCLUSION: Health professionals greatly need an observational pain assessment tool for people with advanced cancer. The APS-SE is helpful in this context, but participants did not perceive it as ideal. Its problems seem inherent to the original APS rather than related to its translation from English to Swedish. Further research is needed to provide a more suitable pain assessment tool for patients with advanced cancer. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12912-023-01227-7.