Assessment of postoperative pain management and level of satisfaction at Saint Paul’s Hospital Millennium Medical College

Abstract

Background: Postoperative pain is very common in almost all surgeries. Its inadequate management will result in suffering, increased risk of morbidity and mortality, longer stay in hospital and higher cost. In most developed and developing countries, postoperative pain is not adequately managed. Objective: To assess pain management and level of satisfaction among postoperative patients at Saint Paul’s Hospital Millennium Medical College Methodology: A prospective cross sectional survey was conducted at St Paul’s Hospital Millennium Medical College from August to October 2019 G.C. Study participants were post-operative patients on 2nd and 3rd post procedural day. Data on pain assessment was collected using a modified American Pain Society Patient Outcome Questionnaire. The collected date was cleaned, coded and entered on SPSS version 25 for analysis. Characteristics of the study participants were analyzed using descriptive statistics for categorical data and mean and standard deviation for continuous data. The data was summarized and described using charts and tables. Binary and multivariate logistic regression analysis was used to explore the association between patient characteristics and the outcome (satisfaction to pain management) and P value less than 0.05 was considered as statistically significant. Results: The study included a total of 178 post operative patients with a mean age of 38.75 ±16.78. The majority of the study populations were females accounting for 65.2 %.There was a 100 % incidence of post operative pain and the mean level of satisfaction from pain management was 7.52 ± 2.52. Attitude towards pain management and co morbidity were found to have association with level of satisfaction from pain management. Conclusion: postoperative pain management was suboptimal among postoperative patients. Proper utilization of pain scoring charts, standardizing treatment methods and active patient participation of patients on the care should be considered to improve pain management. Key words: Postoperative pain, analgesics and St. Paul’s Hospital Millennium Medical College