Objective

To investigate the current scenario in Brazil regarding pain assessment and control in experimental animals.

Study design

Prospective survey.

Methods

A confidential questionnaire was available online and sent by e-mail to Brazilian scientists working with animal experimentation in Brazil. Data collection was conducted from October 2016 to October 2017. The exclusion criteria included blank questionnaires or with <80% completed responses, researchers not performing experiments involving animals and foreign scientists.

Results

A total of 96 questionnaires from 104 respondents were analyzed. The Fisher’s exact test showed a disparity between the proportions of scientists who recognized the importance of analgesia and their application of analgesic techniques in painful procedures (p < 0.0003), and also for the researchers who assumed that experiments inflicted pain and their classification of the degree of invasiveness (p < 0.0001), indicating their insufficient knowledge of these topics. Overall, 77% of institutions did not offer specific training to assess pain in experimental animals, and 24% of respondents had no training to work with animal experimentation. In total, 62% of the studies inflicted pain, 48% of respondents used pain scales, and the drugs administered most frequently for pain management were morphine (44%), meloxicam (43%) and tramadol (37%); 15% of respondents did not include analgesics even though their studies inflicted pain. Commonly used animals were rats (33%), mice (29%) and rabbits (8%).

Conclusions and clinical relevance

The results of this preliminary survey indicated that in Brazil there is a gap in the knowledge and training on pain assessment and management of experimental animals. Therefore, there is a necessity for an educational program to prepare and train scientists to assess and manage pain in laboratory or experimental animals. Further studies using a psychometrically validated survey instrument are warranted.

中文翻译：

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初步调查了巴西科学家对科学中所用动物的疼痛管理和评估的态度。

目的

调查巴西有关实验动物疼痛评估和控制的当前情况。

学习规划

前瞻性调查。

方法

机密调查问卷可在线获得，并通过电子邮件发送给在巴西从事动物实验的巴西科学家。数据收集于2016年10月至2017年10月进行。排除标准包括空白问卷或完成答复率低于80％的研究人员，研究人员未进行涉及动物和外国科学家的实验。

结果

共分析了104位受访者的96份问卷。Fisher的精确检验表明，认识到镇痛的重要性的科学家比例与他们在镇痛方法中应用镇痛技术之间的差异（p <0.0003），以及对于假设实验会造成疼痛及其程度分类的研究人员之间存在差异侵袭性的（p<0.0001），表明他们对这些主题的知识不足。总体而言，有77％的机构没有提供评估实验动物疼痛的专门培训，而24％的受访者没有进行动物实验的培训。总的来说，有62％的研究引起疼痛，48％的受访者使用了疼痛量表，并且最常用于镇痛的药物是吗啡（44％），美洛昔康（43％）和曲马多（37％）；即使他们的研究造成疼痛，仍有15％的受访者不使用镇痛药。常用的动物是大鼠（33％），小鼠（29％）和兔子（8％）。

结论与临床意义

初步调查的结果表明，在巴西，有关疼痛评估和实验动物管理的知识和培训尚存在差距。因此，有必要制定一项教育计划，以准备和培训科学家以评估和管理实验室或实验动物的疼痛。有必要使用经过心理学计量的调查工具进行进一步研究。