Postoperative Pain and Age: A Retrospective Cohort Association Study

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jacqueline F. M. van Dijk ◽  
Ruth Zaslansky ◽  
Regina L. M. van Boekel ◽  
Juanita M. Cheuk-Alam ◽  
Sara J. Baart ◽  
...  

Background As the population ages, the number of elderly people undergoing surgery increases. Literature on the incidence and intensity of postoperative pain in the elderly is conflicting. This study examines associations between age and pain-related patient reported outcomes and perioperative pain management in a dataset of surgical patients undergoing four common surgeries: spinal surgery, hip or knee replacement, or laparoscopic cholecystectomy. Based on the authors’ clinical experience, they hypothesize that pain scores are lower in older patients. Methods In this retrospective cohort, study data were collected between 2010 and 2018 as part of the international PAIN OUT program. Patients filled out the International Pain Outcomes Questionnaire on postoperative day 1. Results A total of 11,510 patients from 26 countries, 59% female, with a mean age of 62 yr, underwent one of the aforementioned types of surgery. Large variation was detected within each age group for worst pain, yet for each surgical procedure, mean scores decreased significantly with age (mean Numeric Rating Scale range, 6.3 to 7.3; β = –0.2 per decade; P ≤ 0.001), representing a decrease of 1.3 Numeric Rating Scale points across a lifespan. The interference of pain with activities in bed, sleep, breathing deeply or coughing, nausea, drowsiness, anxiety, helplessness, opioid administration on the ward, and wish for more pain treatment also decreases with age for two or more of the procedures. Across the procedures, patients reported being in severe pain on postoperative day one 26 to 38% of the time, and pain interfered moderately to severely with movement. Conclusions The authors’ findings indicate that postoperative pain decreases with increasing age. The change is, however, small and of questionable clinical significance. Additionally, there are still too many patients, at any age, undergoing common surgeries who suffer from moderate to severe pain, which interferes with function, supporting the need for tailoring care to the individual patient. Editor’s Perspective What We Already Know about This Topic What This Article Tells Us That Is New

2013 ◽  
Vol 118 (4) ◽  
pp. 934-944 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hans J. Gerbershagen ◽  
Sanjay Aduckathil ◽  
Albert J. M. van Wijck ◽  
Linda M. Peelen ◽  
Cor J. Kalkman ◽  
...  

Abstract Background: Severe pain after surgery remains a major problem, occurring in 20–40% of patients. Despite numerous published studies, the degree of pain following many types of surgery in everyday clinical practice is unknown. To improve postoperative pain therapy and develop procedure-specific, optimized pain-treatment protocols, types of surgery that may result in severe postoperative pain in everyday practice must first be identified. Methods: This study considered 115,775 patients from 578 surgical wards in 105 German hospitals. A total of 70,764 patients met the inclusion criteria. On the first postoperative day, patients were asked to rate their worst pain intensity since surgery (numeric rating scale, 0–10). All surgical procedures were assigned to 529 well-defined groups. When a group contained fewer than 20 patients, the data were excluded from analysis. Finally, 50,523 patients from 179 surgical groups were compared. Results: The 40 procedures with the highest pain scores (median numeric rating scale, 6–7) included 22 orthopedic/trauma procedures on the extremities. Patients reported high pain scores after many “minor” surgical procedures, including appendectomy, cholecystectomy, hemorrhoidectomy, and tonsillectomy, which ranked among the 25 procedures with highest pain intensities. A number of “major” abdominal surgeries resulted in comparatively low pain scores, often because of sufficient epidural analgesia. Conclusions: Several common minor- to medium-level surgical procedures, including some with laparoscopic approaches, resulted in unexpectedly high levels of postoperative pain. To reduce the number of patients suffering from severe pain, patients undergoing so-called minor surgery should be monitored more closely, and postsurgical pain treatment needs to comply with existing procedure-specific pain-treatment recommendations.


2006 ◽  
Vol 105 (4) ◽  
pp. 794-800 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pasi Lahtinen ◽  
Hannu Kokki ◽  
Markku Hynynen

Background Persistent chest pain may originate from cardiac surgery. Conflicting results have been reported on the incidence of persistent poststernotomy pain with considerable discrepancies between the retrospective reports and the one prospective study conducted to assess this pain. Therefore, the authors conducted a follow-up survey for the first 12 months after cardiac surgery in 213 patients who had a sternotomy. Methods The authors performed a prospective inquiry of acute and chronic poststernotomy pain both before and after cardiac surgery. Two hundred thirteen coronary artery bypass patients received a questionnaire preoperatively, 4 days postoperatively, and 1, 3, 6, and 12 months postoperatively. All patients were asked about their expectations, their preferences, and the location and intensity of postoperative pain. Results The return rates for the postal questionnaires were 203 (95%) and 186 (87%) after 1 and 12 months, respectively. Patients experienced more pain postoperatively at rest than they had expected to preoperatively. At rest, the worst actual postoperative pain was 6 (0-10), and the worst expected pain as assessed preoperatively was 5 (0-10) (P = 0.013). The worst reported postoperative pain was severe (numeric rating scale score 7-10) in 49% at rest, in 78% during coughing, and in 62% of patients on movement. One year after the operation, 26 patients (14%) reported mild chronic poststernotomy pain at rest, 1 patient (1%) had moderate pain, and 3 patients (2%) had severe pain. Upon movement, persistent pain was even more common: 45 patients (24%) had mild, 5 patients (3%) had moderate, and 7 patients (4%) had severe pain. Patients who experienced moderate to severe acute postoperative pain also reported any chronic poststernotomy pain (numeric rating scale score 1-10) more frequently. Conclusions Although common, the incidence of persistent pain after sternotomy was lower than previously reported. Also, reassuringly, 1 year after surgery this pain was mostly mild in nature both at rest and on movement.


2021 ◽  
pp. rapm-2020-102238
Author(s):  
Jonathan M Hagedorn ◽  
Timothy R Deer ◽  
Nicholas C Canzanello ◽  
Stephen M Covington ◽  
Darrell R Schroeder ◽  
...  

IntroductionSpinal cord stimulation is frequently used for the treatment of intractable chronic pain conditions. Trialing of the spinal cord stimulator device is recommended to assess the patient’s response to neurostimulation before permanent implantation. The trial response is often assessed by Numeric Rating Scale changes and patient-reported percentage pain improvement. Using number rating scale changes between prespinal and postspinal cord stimulation trial, a calculated percentage pain improvement can be obtained. The aim of this study was to assess the difference between calculated and patient-reported percentage improvement in pain scale during spinal cord stimulation trials.MethodsThis study was a retrospective single center review of all spinal cord stimulation trials from January 1 2017 to July 1 2019. A total of 174 patients were included. The paired t-test was used to compare numeric pain scores obtained prestimulation versus poststimulation. The mean difference between methods (patient-reported minus calculated) was compared with zero using the 1-sample t-test. Lin’s concordance correlation coefficient was computed with a 95% CI, calculated using Fisher z-transformation; and a bootstrapping approach was used to compare the concordance correlation coefficient between groups. In all cases, two-tailed tests were used with p<0.05 considered statistically significant.ResultsBased on prestimulation and poststimulation numeric rating scale scores, the mean±SD calculated percentage improvement in pain scale was 54±28. The mean±SD patient-reported percentage improvement in pain scale was 59±25. The overall 95% limits of agreement for the two methods are −30% to +41%. The overall concordance correlation coefficient was 0.76 (95% CI 0.69 to 0.81).ConclusionAlthough the two methods are highly correlated, there is substantial lack of agreement between patient-reported and calculated percentage improvement in pain scale, suggesting that these measures should not be used interchangeably for spinal cord stimulator trial outcome assessment. This emphasizes the need for improved metrics to better measure patient response to neuromodulation therapies. Additionally, patient-reported percentage improvement in pain was found to be higher than calculated percentage improvement in pain, potentially highlighting the multidimensional experience of pain and the unpredictability of solely using Numeric Rating Scale scores to assess patient outcomes.


2016 ◽  
Vol 12 (5) ◽  
pp. 347 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stine Hebsgaard, MD ◽  
Anne Mannering, MD ◽  
Stine T. Zwisler, MD, PhD

Objective: To elucidate pain treatment with analgesics in a prehospital trauma population.Design: Retrospective database study.Setting: Prehospital data from the anesthesiologist-manned Mobile Emergency Care Unit (MECU) in Odense, Denmark, were extracted and subjected to analysis.Patients: During the period of January 1, 2013 to December 31, 2014, patients with the diagnoses “unspecified multiple injuries,” “examination and observation following traffic accident,” “examination and observation following other accident,” and “commotio cerebri” were included in the analysis.Main Outcome Measures: Evaluation of the application of the pain scale Numeric Rating Scale (NRS). Furthermore, the authors performed a characterization of the patients with mild pain and severe pain according to specific parameters such as pharmacological interventions, opioid consumption, intubation, and others.Results: Nine hundred eighty-five cases were analyzed. NRS was documented only in one case. In all, 787 patients experienced no pain or mild pain (no pain, n = 242; mild pain, n = 545) and 168 patients severe pain or worse (severe pain, n = 155; intolerable pain, n = 13). In the severe pain group, 138 were treated with opioid analgesics or S-ketamine, while no pharmacological intervention was documented in 30 cases. Eight of the 138 cases with severe pain needed endotracheal intubation, whereas nine cases in the patients with mild or no pain needed endotracheal intubation; odds ratio (OR) 4.3 (p = 0.003).Conclusions: Effect was only documented in one patient after administering opioids in a patient with trauma population, where approximately 17 percent of patients experienced severe pain. Severe pain was correlated to male gender, respiratory intervention, opioid administration, and the diagnosis unspecified multiple injuries.


Author(s):  
Lupi Lestari ◽  
Elizeus Hanindito ◽  
Arie Utariani

Introduction: Effective postoperative pain management provides improved patient comfort and satisfaction, earlier mobilization, fewer pulmonary and cardiac complications, reduced risk deep vein thrombosis, fast recovery, and reduced cost of care. Preemptive analgesia, initiated before the surgical procedure to prevent pain in the early postoperative period, has the potential to be more effective than a similar analgesic treatment initiated after surgery. As a part of multimodal analgesia, the use of NSAIDs should always be considered for acute postoperative pain management. NSAIDs can be used preoperatively as a part of the preemptive regimen and for postoperative pain control to increase the efficacy of opioids and reduce its side effects. Material and Method: This research was experimental research with a case-control design of the study. The samples separated into two groups, the first group got ketoprofen suppository before the induction, and the second group didn’t get the ketoprofen suppository The intensity of pain measured with the Numeric Rating Scale (NRS) or Wong-Baker Faces Pain Scale was the variable studied at different postoperative times (30 min, 60 min, 120 min, 2-6 hours, 6-12 hours). The total amount of rescue analgesics (fentanyl) and side effects were other variables of this study. Result and Discussion: The result is ketoprofen suppository as preemptive analgesia administrations can reduce postoperative pain. Numeric Rating Scale was significantly lower in the ketoprofen group compared to the control group (p < 0,05) at 30 min, 60 min, 230 min, 2-6 hours, 6-12 hours. The number of postoperative analgesics needed in the recovery room was significant differences among both groups (p < 0,05). Conclusion: Preemptive analgesia in patients who underwent an operation with general anesthesia with ketoprofen suppository was effectively in blocking noxious stimuli and central sensitization, with subsequent prevention of acute postoperative pain.


RMD Open ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. e000928 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dafna Gladman ◽  
Peter Nash ◽  
Hitoshi Goto ◽  
Julie A Birt ◽  
Chen-Yen Lin ◽  
...  

ObjectivesThis study assessed the psychometric properties of the fatigue numeric rating scale (NRS) and sought to establish values for clinically meaningful change (responder definition).MethodsUsing disease-specific clinician-reported and patient-reported data from two randomised clinical trials of patients with psoriatic arthritis (PsA), the fatigue NRS was evaluated for test–retest reliability, construct validity and responsiveness. A responder definition was also explored using anchor-based and distribution-based methods.ResultsTest–retest reliability analyses supported the reproducibility of the fatigue NRS in patients with PsA (intraclass correlation coefficient=0.829). Mean (SD) values at baseline and week 2 were 5.7 (2.2) and 5.7 (2.4), respectively. Supporting construct validity of the fatigue NRS, moderate-to-large correlations with other assessments measuring similar concepts as measured by Sackett’s conventions were demonstrated. Fatigue severity was reduced when the underlying disease activity was improved and reductions remained consistent at week 12 and 24. A 3-point improvement was identified as being optimal for demonstrating a level of clinically meaningful improvement in fatigue NRS after 12–24 weeks of treatment.ConclusionsFatigue NRS is a valid and responsive patient-reported outcome instrument for use in patients with PsA. The established psychometric properties from this study support the use of fatigue NRS in clinical trials and in routine clinical practice. Robust validation of reliability for use in routine clinical practice in treating patients with active PsA in less active disease states and other more diverse ethnic groups is needed.


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