A Prospective, Blinded Study Comparing In-hospital Postoperative Pain Scores Reported by Patients to Nurses Versus Physicians

Introduction: Referred to as the “fifth vital sign”, pain is unique in that it cannot be obtained accurately by objective measurements. Instead, providers rely on patient-reported scales, such as the numerical rating scale (NRS), to determine a patient’s pain level. Research has shown that patients report different pain scores to nurses and physicians in the clinic setting. It is unknown if this also occurs in the acute postoperative period. We hypothesized that patients report similar pain scores to the nursing staff and physician postoperatively. The primary aim of this study was to examine the degree of agreement between these patient-reported pain scores. Methods: A prospective study was conducted on 90 postoperative patients. During rounds, the surgeon collected a patient-reported pain score using the 11-point verbal NRS. Following rounds, the nursing staff obtained a pain score using the same scale. The patient was blinded to the study. Results: The median score reported to both the surgeon and nurses was 3 (range: 0-10), with a median difference of 0 (range: -2.5 to 7). Fifty-four percent of patients reported the same score to both the surgeon and the nurse and 88% of patients reported scores within a 1-point difference. This corresponded to an interclass correlation coefficient of 0.90, indicating very good agreement. The degree of agreement in pain scores reported to surgeons and nurses was consistent according to sex and age. Conclusion: The results of the study demonstrate a high degree of agreement between the pain scores reported by the patients to both the nursing staff and the surgeon postoperatively, with 88% of the scores at most being 1-point different.