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Assessment of pain is integral to the planning and implementation of nursing care to relieve pain.
This study was conducted to examine for nurses´s assessment of pain in postoperative patients during the course of postoperative care and to provide basic data for postoperative patients´ pain management.
Subjects were 72 registered nurses and 72 general surgery patients at 3 hospitals in Seoul and 3 hospitals in Chongju.
Data was collected from February 11 to March 8, 1999.
Patients completed a Visual Analogue Scale(VAS) when they indicated the presence of pain. Simultaneously, the nurse with the primary responsibility for the patient´s care completed a VAS to indicate an assessment of the patient´s pain.
The data was analyzed by utilizing SPSSWIN.
The results are as follows :
1. 48 of 72 patients (66.7%) marked less than or equal 5cm on the VAS and 24 of 72 patients(33.3%) marked greater than 6 츠 on the VAS. With the respect to the general characteristics of the patients, there was statistically significant difference between patients´ pain and hospital location.
2. The mean VAS score for the nurse´s assessment of a patient´s 4.35 cm, the mean VAS score for the patient´s pain was 4.75 cm. There was statistically significant difference between the mean VAS score for nurse´s assessment and that for patient´s pain(p=.02). The mean difference between nurses´ assessment and patients´ pain was -0.40 cm. Nurses´ assessment was correlated with their patients´ pain (r=.79, p=.00).
3. There was only significant difference between the accuracy of nurses´ assessment (i.e., difference between nurses´ assessment and patients´ pain) and patients´ marital status among the general characteristics of the patients. Among the general characteristics of the nurses, there was significant difference between the nurses´ assessment and their degree of education. Therefore, nurses who have associate degree were more accurate in their assessment.
4. The accuracy of nurses´ assessment was not significantly correlated with nurse´ practice experience (r=.11, p=.36), practice experience of present ward(r=.53, p=.08), the time that the nurses spent with their patients because of pain assessment(r=-.19, p=.11), patient´ age(r=.20, p=.09), number of days after surgery(r=-.11, p=.34) and patient´s pain(r=.04, p=.72).
5. Nurses underassessed pain in 36(50%) of the instances, were accurate in 17(23.6%) and overassessed pain in 19(26.4%) of the instances.
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