[Pain in ambulatory surgery. A prospective follow-up study]

Although acute pain is most often the dominant symptom that causes a patient to visit the out-patient clinic there is a lack of data concerning duration, intensity and quality of pain. Therefore, the physician's treatment is most often insufficient and the patient has to fix the dose of drugs himself. To get reliable and objective data a prospective trial on 161 patients in our out-patient clinic was performed using clinical instruments for measurement. 84% of the patients reported significant pain in the out-patient clinic compared to 96% during the prehospital period. Pain intensity is highly depended on the type of injury (bone injuries hurt more than soft tissue injuries). To get more reliable data on the acute pain situation and to improve therapeutic interventions it is suggested to use the methods presented routinely.