J Nurs Acad Soc.  1984 Jun;14(1):60-68.

A Survey on Changes of Postoperative Pain of Surgical Patients according to Time Variation

• Lee EO
• Kim SJ
• Lee KS

Abstract

The main purpose of this study is to observe patterns of pain of surgical patients following surgery. The postoperative pain was checked with the interval of every 2 hours from 6 hours to 80 hours after surgery. Graphic rating scale from unidimensional concept of pain and sensory intensity scale and unpleasantness scale from two dimensional concept of pain were used for pain measurement. Thirty two patients were participated in this study in which 22 were undergone upper abdominal surgery, 7 thyroid or neck surgery and 3 other surgeries. The findings obtained from this study were as follows: 1) In all cases of using 3 different pain measurement tools, postoperative pain was markedly decreased since 36 hours after surgery. In case of patient's less cooperation, either sensory intensity scale or graphic rating scale may be chosen for the measurement of pain. 2) Pain amounts measured by sensory intensity scale were highly correlated with those measured by unpleasantness scale in all situations except several situations having few cases included. Unpleasantness scale may be separately used for the measurement of affective response due to pain. 3) Almost 90% of total amount of analgesics used for relief of pain were used within 36 hours after surgery. 4) Mean frequency of analgesics used by every patient during 80 hours following surgery was 0.84.

MeSH Terms

Analgesics
Humans
Neck
Pain Measurement
Pain, Postoperative*
Thyroid Gland
Analgesics