Evaluation tool for patients with postoperative pain

Abstract

Introduction: Pain is an unpleasant, sensory and emotional experience associated with tissue damage.
Objective: To evaluate a tool for the assessment of postoperative pain in patients with elective surgeries.
Methods: A technological innovation research was carried out for the construction and validation of a measuring instrument at "Manuel Ascunce Domenech" Teaching University Hospital, from October 2015 to January 2018. The study was carried out in two phases: the first refers to the construction of the instrument and the second related to the validation of this.
Results: The highest correlation coefficients were: facial expression, muscle tone and systolic blood pressure. From this analysis, the definitive instrument with the same number of parts was formed. To evaluate the reliability of the scale, the parallel test was used, which resulted in a Pearson linear correlation coefficient of 0.945 with a 95 % confidence interval from 0.93 to 0.97 between the scores obtained in one and another use. In the internal consistency analysis, the Cronbach alpha coefficient was used, which obtained a value of 0.753. The appearance validity was explored by consulting experts, who considered that the items contained in the scale were well constructed.
Conclusions: The average time required to apply the instrument was 10 min. The scale does not need particular conditions for the evaluation process. For these reasons, it is considered that an adequate, useful and feasible instrument was built to be used by qualified personnel.