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Anticipating and experiencing post‐operative pain: the patients' perspective
Author(s) -
CARR ELOISE C.J.,
THOMAS V.J.
Publication year - 1997
Publication title -
journal of clinical nursing
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.94
H-Index - 102
eISSN - 1365-2702
pISSN - 0962-1067
DOI - 10.1111/j.1365-2702.1997.tb00304.x
Subject(s) - medicine , physical therapy , pain catastrophizing , perspective (graphical) , pain management , visual analogue scale , incidence (geometry) , pain control , postoperative pain , chronic pain , anesthesia , physics , artificial intelligence , computer science , optics
Summary• This study uses a qualitative approach to explore patients' expectations and experiences of pain, factors contributing to the effective/ineffective management of their pain and strategies patients reported as helpful when experiencing pain. Ten patients on a mixed surgical ward at a District General Hospital in the south of England participated in the study. • Pain scores, using a visual analogue scale, were obtained for ‘expected’ pain pre‐operatively and ‘worst pain experienced’. A taped in‐depth interview exploring patients' experience of pain after surgery took place on the fifth post‐operative day. • Details of analgesia were also collected for the 5 days following surgery. • Patients expected pain after surgery but the intensity of the pain they experienced was often significantly greater than anticipated. • Lack of information, inadequate pain assessment and ineffective pain control contributed to this finding. • It is suggested that new pain technology, such as epidural and patient‐controlled analgesia, may not change the prevalence and incidence of pain unless the systems these technologies are placed within also change.