Using the American Pain Society's patient outcome questionnaire to evaluate the quality of postoperative pain management in a sample of Norwegian patients.
In the United States, quality improvement (QI) approaches have been used to evaluate pain management. However, the use of QI approaches to evaluate the quality of patient care is just emerging in many European countries. The purposes of this study, using the American Pain Society's QI Standards, were: to describe changes over time, in pain severity, in pain interference with function, and in the doses of analgesics administered; to describe patients' level of satisfaction with postoperative pain management; and to determine the relationships between pain severity and patient outcomes. Results from a sample of patients who underwent orthopedic surgery suggest that undertreatment of pain persists across the first 5 postoperative days and that pain's level of interference with function decreases significantly between the third and fifth postoperative days. As in other studies, despite high pain intensity scores, patients reported high levels of satisfaction with postoperative pain management.


CONCLUSIONS
Findings suggest that the undertreatment of pain results in significant decrements in function over the first 5 postoperative days. Future studies designed to improve the quality of postoperative pain management need to use multimodal approaches and evaluate not only pain intensity, but improvements in function as critical outcome measures.
Dihle
Alfhild
A
Faculty of Nursing, Oslo University College, Oslo, Norway. alfhild.dihle@su.hio.no
Helseth
Sølvi
S
Kongsgaard
Ulf E
UE
Paul
Steven M
SM
Miaskowski
Christine
C
D000368:Aged; D000700:Analgesics / Q000008:administration & dosage*; D019643:Arthroplasty, Replacement / Q000009:adverse effects*; D004305:Dose-Response Relationship, Drug; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009664:Norway; D010147:Pain Measurement; D010149:Postoperative Pain / Q000188:drug therapy* / Q000209:etiology / Q000523:psychology; D017060:Patient Satisfaction; D011787:Quality of Health Care; D020127:Recovery of Function; D012955:Societies, Medical; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D013997:Time Factors; D016896:Treatment Outcome
D000700:Analgesics