[Assessment of acute postoperative pain]

A nursing task is to look after the pain associated with surgical procedures in order to maintain patient wellbeing. The first objective of this study was to measure the level of the patient satisfaction with management of post-operative pain. Secondly, we wanted to identify the determining factors of an adequate postoperative analgesia and the predictive value of the visual analogical scale (VAS).

A sample of patients who had an operation was interviewed. The VAS was administered two hours and 24h after the surgical procedure with the American Society of Pain questionnaire. ROC curves were applied to establish the cut-off point for the VAS. We determined the contribution of different variables to adequate pain management by means of logistic regression.

We interviewed 237 patients in 2007 and 2008. Pain during the first 24h was perceived by 54% of them, 98% were satisfied with pain management and 95% expressed that analgesic treatment relieved their pain. Variables statistically associated with pain were specialty, and a value on the VAS higher than 0 two hours after the procedure.

The management of post operative pain is satisfactory. The use of the VAS during the first two hours identifies an important percentage of patients who require more intensive analgesic treatment.