Descriptive study of the postoperative pain assessment and documentation process in a university hospital

Several studies have shown that patients often receive inadequate treatment of postoperative pain. The aim of the present descriptive study was to examine and analyze various data related to the postoperative pain assessment of 40 patients who underwent elective surgery. Pain journals were to be completed by patients during every waking hour for the first three postoperative days to assess both pain intensity and pain unpleasantness. A post hoc analysis of patient records permitted verification of pain assessment by nurses for each patient. The results showed that not only was postoperative pain rarely assessed using a valid scale, it was also poorly documented. In addition, when nurses assessed and documented postoperative pain using a numerical scale, their results were very different from patients' assessments. For the first postoperative day, the mean (+/- SD) pain intensity documented by nurses on a 0 to 10 numerical scale was 1.57 +/- 0.23, while the mean pain intensity noted by patients using the same scale was 3.82 +/- 0.41. Statistical analysis showed that there was no significant correlation between mean pain intensity documented by nurses and the mean pain intensity noted by patients.