J Korean Acad Fundam Nurs.  2013 May;20(2):137-146.

Cost Analysis of Post Operative Pain Management for Surgical Patients using PCA

• Hong SJ
• Lee E

Abstract

PURPOSE
The purposes of this study were to identify and compare various types of post operative pain management and the costs for pain management following 4 different types of surgery.
METHODS
Data were collected from 325 medical charts which were extracted from the billing databases of a tertiary hospital and analyzed using numbers, percentages, one way ANOVA, and Scheffe test.
RESULTS
For pain management, 10.5% of patients used PCA only, but the other patients combined other methods with PCA. The average length of PCA use was significantly different by operation. Almost one third (32.9%) of patients experienced at least one of side effects due to analgesics used for pain management, with highest incidence being for nausea and vomiting. For patients who underwent a total abdominal hysterectomy, 34.7% used PCA less than 2 days due to side effects of the analgesics and the ratio of analgesia cost to total hospital cost and total pharmacy cost were highest compared to other operations.
CONCLUSION
The results of this study indicate a need to develop new strategies to more effectively manage postoperative pain to decrease incidences of side effects without increasing medical costs.

Keyword

Patient controlled analgesia; Cost; Post operative pain

MeSH Terms

Analgesia
Analgesia, Patient-Controlled
Analgesics
Costs and Cost Analysis
Hospital Costs
Humans
Hysterectomy
Incidence
Nausea
Pain Management
Pain, Postoperative
Passive Cutaneous Anaphylaxis
Pharmacy
Tertiary Care Centers
Vomiting
Analgesics