Sammanfattning
An interdisciplinary project to implement pain management instructions improved pain management significantly during post-operative recovery.
The premise was that anaesthesiology and recovery unit nurses had long been reporting severe pain in patients in early post-operative care.
The problems of teamworking and maintaining continual focus on adequate pain management of post-operative patients were resolved by being receptive to other professionals’ experiences of attending to recovery patients. The instructions resulting from the interdisciplinary project were revised ongoingly based on experience from clinical practice. The latest results indicate that post-operative pain is now managed far more effectively.
Two hours after arrival in the observation unit, 26 per cent (34 patients out of 69) scored 4 or more on the pain-intensity Numerical Rating Scale (NRS). At the start of the project, 49 per cent (101 patients out of 224) scored 4 or more on the NRS for pain intensity.
It is imperative for the patient, and hence the nursing, that nurses raise similar concerns at an interdisciplinary level.