Relevance of Preoperative Pain Education To The Cardiac Patients on Their Response To Postoperative Pain Therapy

To observe the effects of preoperative pain education on Coronary artery bypass graft surgery (CABG) patients on postoperative pain management. Methods: A randomized control trial was performed from April-December 2019, after seeking ethical approval. Patients of Punjab institute of cardiology, Lahore, scheduled for CABG were selected after informed consent. Those with psychiatric illness, chronic pain/opioid addiction, or allergic to opioids, were excluded. The population was divided into control (received routine preoperative care) and interventional (received additional preoperative education via pain management booklet) groups, data was collected postoperatively via questionnaire and analyzed on SPSS. Chi-square was used as a statistical test and p-value <0.05 was significant. Results: Eighty patients with 47 males and 33 females aged 50-80 years (mean=61.05±8.32) were recruited. The interventional group agreed to the significance of instant in-hospital notifying/managing pain and 38(95%) controls agreed to it, 39(98%) interventional patients were willing for a stronger pain-relief medicine if not cured by the initial dose, while 12(30%) controls were willing for it. 38(95%) interventional patients denied the fear of addiction to painkillers, contrarily 5(12.5%) controls negated this fear. All interventional patients rejected the concern of incurable nausea with pain-relief medicine, while 37(92.5%) controls were threatened with this concern. Constipation associated with pain-relief medicine was refused by all interventional patients, 25(62.5%) controls accepted it. All the differences between both groups were significant (p<0.001). Conclusion: A significantly improved postoperative patient compliance/outcome (pain-related) was observed in the interventional group who preoperative received pain education compared to the control.