title: Acute postoperative pain management by a surgical team in a tertiary care hospital: patients satisfaction.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To assess the acute postoperative pain management by a surgical team and patient satisfaction in a tertiary care teaching hospital.
  
  
  METHODS
  105 patients, ASA I & II, both sexes, mean age of 35.1 +/- 14.6 years, scheduled for general surgery under routine practice conditions, were included in the study. All patients were assessed 12 and 24 hours postoperatively by two numerical visual analogue scale (VAS 0-10), related to rest and dynamic pain. Patients were also requested to indicate their satisfaction level with the help of VAS. Data was analyzed by SPSS version 10. Student t test was applied to find significant differences between the groups.
  
  
  RESULTS
  At 12 hours postoperatively mean rest and dynamic pain scores were 3.85 +/- 2.45 and 5.32 +/- 2.61 respectively. At 24 hours postoperatively mean rest and dynamic pain scores were 2.84 +/- 1.86 and 4.65 +/- 2.47 respectively. Overall, female patients experienced more pain but there was no statistically significant difference apart from rest pain at 24 hours. Forty-seven (44.8%) patients were very satisfied, 42 (40%) moderately satisfied and 16 (15.2%) patients were mildly satisfied with the pain management.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Overall management of acute postoperative pain by surgical team in a tertiary care hospital was satisfactory. Most of patients were moderately to very satisfied by the care provided.
authors: Surgical Unit II, Civil Hospital. Karachi, Pakistan. masood@masoodjawaid.com
authors: Masood
authors: M
authors: Jawaid
authors: Shah
authors: S
authors: Muhammad
authors: Faraz
authors: F
authors: Shafiq
authors: Khalid Ahsan
authors: KA
authors: Malik
mesh_terms: D000208:Acute Disease; D000328:Adult; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D010149:Postoperative Pain / Q000188:drug therapy*; D017060:Patient Satisfaction