Can Perfusion Index be used as an Objective Tool for Pain Assessment in Labor Analgesia?

OBJECTIVE: To establish a relationship between the Visual Analog Scale for pain (VAS) in the recovery time of epidural analgesia and the Perfusion Index (PI) values at that time and to test the possibility of using PI as an objective tool for pain assessment. METHODS: Thirty women were included in the study. After inserting epidural catheter, the initial applicationtime of epidural analgesia was taken as 0(th) minute. Hemodinamics, VAS, and PIvalues were recorded at 5(th), 10(th), 30(th), 60(th) minutes and every two hours until the birth and the 30(th) minute after the birth. RESULTS: HR, SAP, DAP, PI, VAS values before the procedure were different than all follow-ups (p<0.001). A negative and significant correlation was found at 10(th), 30(th), 60(th) minutes and 2(nd) hour after drug administration from epidural catheter(rho:0.38; p:0.03, rho:0.47; p:0.009, rho:0.75; p<0.001, rho:0.46; p:0.009, respectively). As the pain decreased, the perfusion index increased. In 17 patients requiring additional doses, PI increased after the all medications, but a decrease was observed in the VAS values(p<0.05). CONCLUSIONS: In this study, it was determined that the pain decreased with epidural analgesia, perfusion index increased and the pain level increased significantly when the perfusion index started to decrease.