A survey of perceptions with pain management in Spanish inpatients

The aim of this study was to document the satisfaction with pain management in a Spanish inpatient population and its relationship with pain ratings. Two hundred fifty inpatients of four departments were interviewed: Surgery, Orthopedics, Gynecology, and Internal Medicine. A 32-item questionnaire was used, and the main variables evaluated were pain severity, dissatisfaction with pain management and caregivers, and patient expectations regarding pain relief. Relationships among the variables were analyzed by means of Spearman's correlation between item scores and regression analysis. Median satisfaction scores were consistent with "very satisfied." Mean (SD) worst pain during the past 24 hours was 68.8 (27.5) on a 100 mm visual analogue scale. "Dissatisfaction with Pain Management" correlated positively with "Dissatisfaction with Medical Staff" (0.42), and inversely with "Pain Now" (-0.41) and "Expected Pain Relief" (-0.38). Regression analysis showed that "Dissatisfaction with Pain Management" was dependent on "Pain Now," "Least Pain," and "Dissatisfaction with Medical Staff," with statistically significant beta weight values of 0.277, 0.197, and 0.280, respectively. The study shows that patients were highly satisfied with pain management, even when they were in pain. Moreover, it establishes that patient dissatisfaction with treatment was highly related to the satisfaction with caregivers and pain intensity.