Pain Control after Appendectomy in Ardabil Fatemi Hospital, 2004

Pain acts as a defensive mechanism of body, which occurs following tissue damage. It is expected in surgical wounds. With regard to negative clinical outcomes resulting from surgery pain, this study was conducted to investigate the quality of pain control after appendectomy. Methds: In this descriptive, cross- sectional and prospective study, 200 patients undergoing appendectomy were randomly selected. Pain control in all of the patients was managed for 8 hours using narcotics injected intramuscularly. The patients were studied during 12 hours after surgery. The rating scale of 0-10 grade was used to estimate pain severity. The collected data were analysed by SPSS. From 200 patients experiencing appendectomy, 101 (50.5%) were female and 99 (49.5%) were male. Pain was controlled with pethidine, methadon and pentazocin in 123 (61.5%), 51 (25.5%) and 26 (13%) patients, respectively. In 98 (49%) patients there was severe pain following the surgery. The most severe pain belonged to 21 (80.7%) patients who received pentazocin. With regard to multiple complications and problems resulting from pain after appendectomy, careful control of pain and more attention is necessary.