Abstract
Chest pain is a common presenting complaint in healthcare. Causes of
chest pain are multifactorial, but one of the greatest concerns is that
the pain is cardiac in nature. A succinct, focused and targeted
assessment can help confirm or rule our a cardiac cause as well as
highlighting other potential causes. The assessment focuses on the
quality, location, duration and characteristics, as well as the relieving
factors, for a person with chest pain. Pain assessment tools aid in
eliciting such information and serve to compliment the assessment
process. Haemodynamic assessment aims to determine the stability of
the patient and thus determine the need for subsequent nursing
intervention and the timeliness of the assessment. It is beyond the
scope of this paper to discuss investigations or the management of
chest pain.