Understanding caregivers' accuracy in facial expressions of pain in children: an eye tracking study.

Abstract

Facial expressions of pain indicate that you are in need of attention. Previous studies have shown that caregivers have difficulty distinguishing genuine, suppressed, and fake pain in children. The current study examined parents’ and nurses’ ability to recognize pain expressions in children while their eye-movements were tracked, to understand their accuracy and identify strategies to improve. Results did not show differences between caregiver groups, however there was an effect of expression type. Participants were more accurate for suppressed than genuine expressions and more for genuine than fake expressions. Results from eye movement patterns offer information on how to improve on recognition accuracy. For genuine and suppressed expressions, participants must attend to the eye zone longer and faster to increase accuracy. For fake expressions, the mouth zone needs more attention to increase accuracy, also the faster participants looked at the mouth, the higher their accuracy for fake expressions.