Evaluation of pain scales in domestic cats under both influences of synthetic pheromone and cat friendly practices on clinical and surgical veterinary services

• Grant number: 22/03278-9
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Scientific Initiation
• Start date: August 01, 2022
• End date: February 28, 2023
• Field of knowledge: Agronomical Sciences - Veterinary Medicine - Animal Clinics and Surgery
• Principal Investigator: Aline Magalhães Ambrósio
• Grantee: João Paulo Lula Ribeiro
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Medicina Veterinária e Zootecnia (FMVZ). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil

Abstract

In the veterinary clinical routine, pain in cats frequently happens and it can be caused by several factors and it becomes a difficult task to be evaluated and measured. So it is a challenge to the Veterinarian to have a responsibility and ethical duty to recognize, prevent and alleviate suffering in their patients and ensure their welfare. In addition to this difficulty, cats have as a typical behavioral characteristic the high sensitivity to manipulation and changes in the environment, which in this way, can react with anxiety, fear, stress, and hostility. However, these factors can be mitigated and minimized when using resources such as synthetic pheromone Feliway F3 combined with CatFriendly practices. Currently, although there are several advances in research in the assessment of pain in cats with experimentally validated scales, there are no data or works in the literature that demonstrate the effect of pheromones on the assessment of pain study with verified use of those scales. Thus, this work aims to study whether there is a change in the assessment of pain scales in the face of the cat's behavior, combining the interaction of the environment caused both by the influence of the Feliway F3 pheromone and Cat-Friendly practices. It will be selected and studied cats, males, and females, young, clinical without previous comorbidities such as ASA I structure classification. The animals will undergo elective orchiectomy or ovariohysterectomy at the Department of Surgery service offered at the FMVZ Veterinary Hospital USP. In the study, the same animal will be evaluated in four stages, two in the pre-anesthetic and two in the post-surgical period, combined with an environment with Cat-Friendly practices and sometimes without pheromone (SF) and sometimes with pheromone(CF) according to a random order of drawing. In the first two stages, the cat will be 20 minutes in an environment sometimes (SF) sometimes (CF), according to the order of the draw, and evaluation will be carried out with the Visual Analog Scale (VAS), Glasgow Composite Feline Pain Scale (CMPSFeline), Feline Facial Scale (FGS) and UNESP-Botucatu Multidimensional Scale. After evaluation and data are recorded, the same animal will then move to the second environment either (SF) or (CF) according to the order and sequence of the draw, to repeat the evaluation procedures and application of the same scales for later comparison of the results. After approximately two hours after surgery and the patient's anesthetic recovery, the procedure will be repeated in a similar way to the first two steps: the cat will be evaluated twice more, it will go into an environment that will stay for 20 minutes in a third and fourth step (FC) or (SF) according to the order of the draw, Cat-Friendly practices and evaluation will be carried out with pain scales for later comparison of results.(AU)