Authors

1Angustias Álvaro de las Muelas, 2Vanesa Isabel Peño Moreno, 2Tania Tineo Drove, 3María Ángeles Santos Ampuero

Position

¹Supervisora de Reanimación del Área Quirúrgica. Hospital U. de La Princesa, Madrid. ²Enfermeras de Reanimación del Área Quirúrgica. Hospital U. de La Princesa, Madrid.³Anestesiología. Hospital Universitario de La Princesa, Madrid.

Contact address

C/ Ramón de Santillán, 4, 2º E. 28016 Madrid.

Contact email: ttdrove@hotmail.com

Abstract

Pain must be considered one of the priorities in the care of patients that have undergone surgery as it provokes unnecessary suffering and also contributes to the development of complications that considerably delay the recovery. Despite advances in the last decades, the treatment of pain continues to be ineffective in a large number of patients, who report having experienced pain after a surgical procedure despite the analgesics administered to them. A correct assessment of the pain is fundamental to establish an adequate analgesic therapeutic course. This paper seeks to analyse the most widely used assessment procedures: the use of scales for the subjective aspects described by the actual patient and the objective indicators that can be gathered by an independent observer.

Keywords:

nursing care; postoperative pain; assessment; scalesanalgesic therapy

Versión en Español

Título:

El dolor en el proceso quirúrgico