Patients' Satisfaction from Pain Soothing after the Surgery in Kerman Hospitals (2005)

Introduction: Post-operative pains may lead to various side effects and patient^’s dissatisfaction, and its control is essentially effective in the recovery process after the surgery, length of hospitalization and the amount of patients' satisfaction. The goal of this study is to investigate the amount of patients^' satisfaction from pain soothing after the surgery in Kerman Hospitals during 2005.

Materials & Methods: The research is descriptive–cross sectional in which 720 patients undergone the orthopaedic and stomach surgeries during 3 months in Bahonar and Afzalipur hospitals of Kerman. To investigate the patients' satisfaction from soothing the pain, they were studied 24 hours after surgery through Ache Rating System (ARS) and Numerical Rating System (NRS). The sampling method carried out through census and questionnaire consisting two parts (demographic factors and patients^' ideas about their post-operative pains). To determine the questionnaires validity, content validity was used, and to determine their reliability, a preliminary study and α Kronbach was used which showed the correlation coefficient of 7%, and for data analysis, descriptive statistic (correlation coefficient and X Test) was employed.

Results: The cases studied were 418 males and 302 females, ranging from 15 to 75 years old. The results revealed that 76.11% of patients experienced the surgery for the first time. According to the data analysis, 70.55% of patients were dissatisfied with their pain soothing during 24 hours after the surgery, and 29.45% of them had relative and poor satisfaction, while just 32 of them (4.44%) took anodyne without anaesthetists control, and 52 of them (7.22%) were visited by anaesthetists after the syrgery.

Conclusion: Pain control after the surgery and its bad effects reduction and also the patients' satisfaction have been consistently considered by anaesthetists .The best way suggested for pain reduction after the surgery, is using painlessness methods. Based on research results, 87.35% of patients were clearly in the maximum of severe pain, violent pain and acute pain during 24 hours after the surgery, and nobody showed complete satisfaction of soothing the pain away after the surgery. According to the findings of other researches, patients^' satisfaction after the surgery is related to the severity of pain, and today pain after the surgery is considered as the best criterion for estimating patients^' satisfaction. Consequently, the formation of special teams in Iranian hospitals to manage severe pain and using methods of pain control are recommended to solve this problem.