Post operative pain assessment Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Post operative pain assessment - Essay Example The scale of the problem can be analyzed through a large number of clinical studies which have proved that patients often experience poor pain management and assessment by the medical professionals. Although the percentage of patients who complain about post-operative pain is low but the overall situation presents significant concerns. In the recent years medical professionals have tried to use technology based pain assessment techniques but the results do not show any significant improvement from patient’s perspective (Mackintosh). The paper is divided in different sections including tools, communication, training, patient education and recommendations. All of these will be discussed critically with the help of contemporary healthcare practices. There is a wide range of standardized post-operative pain assessment tools which are used by nurses. These can be distinguished in to two fundamental categories including uni-dimensional and multi-dimensional. Research indicates that multi-dimensional tools are rarely used in the post-operative pain assessment especially within the clinical setting. This is because they consume significant time while being highly complex in nature. Hence the most commonly used tools for pain management and assessment are uni-dimensional. The distinctive feature of these tools is that they focus on one or two major aspects of pain experienced by patients, for instance, they are usually used for reducing the pain intensity with respect to its location (Mackintosh). Fundamentally patients are required to mark the pain location on a body diagram which is then used by nurses. Despite of various benefits attached to the use of uni-dimensional pain assessment tools one must use them with precautions because they are specially targeted to reduce certain aspects of pain. Extensive precautions are also necessary because uni-dimensional