Efficacy of continuous epidural analgesia and the implications for patient care in the early postoperative phase

Management of postoperative pain has been shown to be inadequately controlled, and, in fact, can have significant deleterious effects on a patient's early postoperative recovery. Continuous epidural analgesia has recently been used to control postoperative pain. This mode of analgesia controls postoperative pain without the delays inherent in the PRN administration of systemic narcotics. This was a multidisciplinary, prospective, randomized, double-blind study of various epidural analgesic agents in 53 thoracic and 81 abdominal surgery patients. The focus of the study was to identify the benefits and problems of continuous epidural analgesia for postoperative pain management and the implications for the nursing care of the patients. Evaluation of the effectiveness of the analgesia was based on the following measures: (1) pain measured at regular intervals in the 72-hour period with a visual analog; (2) pain as measured after 72 hours with the word descriptor section of the McGill Pain Questionnaire; (3) amount of supplemental systemic narcotic analgesic needed; (4) recovery of ambulatory and respiratory function, including ability to perform coughing and deep-breathing exercises; (5) occurrence of adverse effects; and (6) the type and distribution of nursing care problems associated with continuous epidural infusions. The results of this study showed that the level of pain relief and recovery of postoperative function was superior to that provided by the more widely used (PRN) systemic administration of narcotics. With the exception of the report of back pain by patients receiving the normal saline epidural solution, complications did not occur in a significantly greater proportion when using the epidural route. Although some nursing care problems were identified, patients who received epidural analgesia were able to be cared for on general care units with no adverse effects reported.