SOCRATES is a mnemonic acronym used by emergency medical services, physicians, nurses, and other health professionals to evaluate the nature of pain that a patient is experiencing.
SOCRATES is used to gain an insight into the patient's condition, and to allow the health care provider to develop a plan for dealing with it.
[3] SOCRATES only focuses on the physical effects of pain, and ignores the social and emotional effects of pain.
[4] SOCRATES is often poorly used by health care providers.
[5] Although pain assessments usually cover many or most of the aspects, they rarely included all 8 aspects.