Effect of Patient Education About Patient-controlled Analgesia Pump Preoperative on Severity of Pain, Nausea and Vomiting After Spinal Culumn Surgery

Patients undergoing spinal column surgery, experience severe postoperative pain. One of the special methods of pain control is use of a patient-controlled analgesia (PCA) pump. Studies show that despite this pump, patients suffer from moderate to severe pain. Therefore, the teaching patients how to use the pump by nurses is essential. Therefore, the present study was conducted to determine the effect of patient education about patient-controlled analgesia pump preoperative on severity of pain, nausea and vomiting after spinal column surgery.

The present study was a randomized controlled trial during which 60 candidate patients of Spinal column surgery hospitalized in Shahid Fatemi hospital in Ardebil, were selected by accessible method and randomly assigned into two groups of 30 individuals, intervention and control group. Both groups received routine training in the use of the pump in the recovery department, but the intervention group received a 15-minute face-to-face intervention session using a sample of the PCA pump. Postoperative pain intensity, nausea, and vomiting in three times, 2, 4, 24 hours after surgery were assessed and compared. SPSS 16 was used to analyze the data.

The findings showed that there was a significant difference between the control and intervention groups regarding the severity of pain in times of 2, 4, and 24 hours postoperative (P<0.001). Pain severity in intervention group was decreased compared to control group. However, there was no significant difference in nausea and vomiting frequency between the two groups (P>0.05).

Training the use of patient-controlled analgesia pump before operation, without changing the severity of nausea and vomiting, reduces pain after spinal column surgery. Therefore, it is recommended that the way of using the pump, be taught before operation.