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RVN's perceptions of confidence levels of veterinary professionals when assessing pain in rabbits

02 September 2024
9 mins read
Volume 15 · Issue 7

Abstract

Background:

Despite the popularity of pet rabbits in the UK, recent research suggests limitations in veterinary professionals’ knowledge and experience regarding behaviour and pain assessment in these patients. There is also a lack of species-specific pain assessment scales for rabbits.

Methods:

An online questionnaire collected key data, followed by semi-structured, one-to-one interviews over Microsoft Teams with five registered veterinary nurses. Thematic analysis was used to interpret the qualitative data.

Results:

Five themes were identified. Participants with more experience with rabbits felt more confident assessing their pain. Some participants found it difficult to distinguish between stress and pain when assessing body language in rabbit patients using pain assessment scales.

Conclusions:

To improve the accuracy of pain assessment in rabbits, it is recommended that registered veterinary nurses and veterinary surgeons receive more training and experience with the species. The potential impact could include more appropriate use of analgesia and improved welfare.

Rabbits are the third most popular pet in the UK, but despite this, evidence suggest that the research that focuses on the welfare and mortality rates of hospitalised rabbits is minimal (Rioja-Lang et al, 2019; Benato et al, 2020). A lack of self confidence in veterinary proessional's knowledge of rabbit pain and analgesia is also evident and the requirement for increased understanding of the species is highlighted to improve welfare of rabbit patients (Fredholm et al, 2013; Benato et al, 2018).

In human medicine, doctors can rely on their patient's ability to communicate where the pain is and how much pain they are in, however, we cannot communicate in the same language as animals and so we rely upon physiological parameters and behavioural observations to assess pain. Inaccurate pain scoring can lead to incorrect dosages of analgesics being administered to the patient (Sneddon et al, 2014).

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