Ways of Assessing Post-operative Pain

Pain is one of the major clinical problems confronting health-care professionals in general and those working in acute-care and post-operative settings in particular (AbuSaad, Huda & Harmers, 1997; Coffman et al., 1997; Dalton & McNaull, 1998). In addition, systematic assessment of patients’ pain is the foundation upon which all pain-related intervention should be based (Donovan, 1985; Miaskwoski et al., 1992; Jacox et al., 1992). Nurses have been regarded as having direct responsibility for the provision of measures to relieve pain because nurses are with patients during their recovery from surgery and when patients report the presence of pain (Garrett, 1997). Consequently, the nurses’ assessments of pain are integral to the post-operative recovery of surgical patients. Although there are many potentially successful strategies available for pain management, a large number of clinical studies from different parts of the world and over a long period of time have found that the incidence of reported pain from patients is still high (Donovan, 1990; Chung, Ritchie & Su, 1997; Walker, 1998; Carr & Goudas, 1999; Klopfenstein et al., 2000; Long, 2000) and severe postoperative pain is a common reason for delayed discharge (Chung, 1995), and for unanticipated hospital admission (Gold, 1989; Fortier, Chung & Su, 1996). Nursing responsibility for pain management involves a complex decision-making process affected by many variables. However, the results of studies suggest that assessment of pain and pain relief are inadequately done by health personnel (Zalon, 1993; Klofenstein et al., 2000; Sjostrom et al., 1997). Such data indicates that there is a lack of adequate and articulated knowledge in clinical pain. It also indicates the lack of knowledge in clinical pain assessment and that there may be basic differences between professional groups including differences in impact of previous experience. In an empirical study, Sjostrom (1995) described nursWays of Assessing Post-operative Pain