Patients’ and nurses’ differences in post-operative pain scores in Saudi Arabia

3^rd Euro Nursing & Medicare Summit

July 27-29, 2015 Valencia, Spain

Thurayya Eid, Elizabeth Manias and Tracey Bucknall

King Abdulaziz University, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia The University of Melbourne, Australia Deakin University, Australia

Scientific Tracks Abstracts: J Nurs Care

Abstract :

Introduction: More than 50% of hospitalized patients experienced moderate to severe pain following surgery. Patients� selfreporting of pain is considered the most reliable form of pain assessment. While past research has shown nurses often underestimate or overestimate patients� pain score, there has been a lack of work in this area conducted in Saudi Arabia. Aim: To determine nurses� judgments about patients� postoperative pain intensities. Method: The study was conducted in surgical wards at a tertiary teaching hospital in Saudi Arabia. A 10 cm Visual Analogue Scale was used to rate the patient�s pain on two occasions: at 4 hours pre-observation and 4 hours post-observation. Data were analyzed using Bland-Altman measurements of agreement. Results: Participants were 137 nurse-patients pairs; adult patients had undergone various surgical procedures. Nurses� first language was different from the patients, and nurses tended to not be Arabic-speaking. At pre- and post-observation, the mean differences were 2.05 cm (SD=2.0, SE=0.17) and 1.96 cm (SD=2.41, SE=0.2) consequently; indicated a significant disagreement between patients� and nurses� ratings of patients� post-operative pain. More than 85.0% patients experienced from mild to severe post-operative pain. Nurses� judgment about assessing patients� postoperative pain often involved the use of simple questioning. Communication difficulties between Arabic speaking patients and non-Arabic speaking nurses were prominent. Conclusion: Communication problem need to be addressed for accurately determining patients� pain intensity following surgery in Saudi Arabia.

Biography :

Thurayya Eid has completed her PhD from the University of Melbourne. She is the Director of Nursing Clinical Practice and Research Unit at King Abdulaziz University hospital since 2012. Her research interests are in decision-making, pain management and communication. She has undertaken various clinical positions, published in reputed journals and served as reviewer for abstracts of medical decision-making conferences and manuscripts for various journals.

Email: teid@kau.edu.sa