nursing approaches in the postoperative pain management

Abstract

Patients frequently experience moderate to severe pain inthe postoperative period. Although the pain managementis an integral and important part of the nursing care, studiessuggest that, nursing management of postoperativepain remains inadequate.Postoperative care nurses are responsible to assess thepatient’s pain, teach the patient strategies to deal with thepain, apply the analgesic treatment plan, monitor the resultsof treatment, educate the patient and the family onpain management and document the pain managementoutcomes. The nurses’ holistic approach to pain managementminimizes the patients’ discomfort caused by pain inthe postoperative period after the surgery. In this article,nurses’ approaches to postoperative pain managementare discussed. J Clin Exp Invest 2011; 2 (4): 474-478