Evaluation of Postoperative Pain Management in Recovery Room, Department of Anesthesiology, Surin Hospital

Abstract

Background: Postoperative pain is the most common problem of recovery room. The effective pain management requires appropriate pain assessment and intervention. In 2010, department of anesthesiology, Surin hospital had defined goal and standard practice to improve the efficacy of pain assessment and management in post operative patient during recovery period. The practice guideline called “ Postoperative Pain Management” was adapted from guideline of anesthesiology department, Faculty of Medicine, KhonKa'en University which Numeric Rating Scale (NRS) was applied for pain assessment and patient self-assessment. Pharmacologic intervention was provided according to the guideline in patient who underwent general anesthesia with pain score of 5 or more points.
Objective: To evaluate the outcome of postoperative pain management in recovery room and satisfaction level of patient of postoperative pain management
Study Design: A descriptive study, sample group was selectively chosen from 572 patients underwent general anesthetic procedure during official hour from August to October 2013. Research instrument was a questionnaire which comprise of three data domains; patient’s characteristic domain, postoperative pain management domain and patient’s satisfaction domain. The questionnaire was approved for content validity and revised before applied to practice by the expert. Statistical analysis of percentage, mean and paired t-test was performed.
Results: Postoperative pain assessment at recovery room found that 83.9% of patients had initial pain score of 5 or more points. Morphine was the most prescribed opioid analgesic medication to patient (80.2%) and frequency of analgesic administration was mostly single administration (46.5%). There was no major complication from pain management procedure, nausea and vomiting was found 3.1% of cases. After pain management, most of patients had pain score < 5 (96.3%) and patient’s satisfaction level to pain management in recovery room was mostly rated as high level (51.4%).
Conclusions: Most of postoperative patient had pain score of 5 or less (96.3%) after pain management at recovery room and patient satisfaction in high level was 51.4%.