Postoperative Pain Management and Patient Evaluations After Five Different Surgical Procedures. A Prospective Cohort Study.

Background: Sufficient pain management is a necessity and can play an important role in patients' contentment.

Aims: To investigate the instituted postoperative pain treatment, patients' levels of pain, opioid consumption, and patient contentment, supplemented with a questionnaire based on the International Pain Outcome (IPO).

Methods: This prospective observational cohort study was conducted at Zealand University Hospital Køge, Denmark (ZUHK) from March 8, 2017, to January 7, 2019, aiming for a consecutive inclusion of 200 patients, 40 from five major surgical procedures. The study was approved by the Danish Data Protection Agency (REG-121-2016) and registered at ClinicalTrials.gov (NCT03080272). The Research Ethics Committee of the Zealand Region was consulted, but approval was not needed according to Danish law (J.nr. 16-000014).

Results: We included 189 patients in total. We found a significant number of patients that did not achieve "no worse than mild pain" (Numeric Rating Scale ≤3) across surgical procedures. The provided pain treatment was heterogenic and inconsistent even among individuals who underwent similar surgical procedures. Although patients did not achieve "no worse than mild pain" (Numeric Rating Scale ≤3), the majority stated that they were content with their pain treatment.

Conclusions: The analgesic treatment varied between procedures and patients and a significant number of patients did not achieve "no worse than mild pain" (Numeric Rating Scale ≤3). A significant association between patient contentment and experience of severe pain, pain relief, and involvement in own pain treatment, was found.