Awareness of general nurses in management of postoperative pain through patient controlled analgesia - Comparison among the Czech Republic and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia

BACKGROUND: Postoperative pain management is one of the largest worldwide challenges faced by healthcare professionals and is one of the most common problems that accompany patients in the postoperative period. OBJECTIVES: We evaluated the awareness of general nurses on the management of postoperative pain through PCA (patient-controlled analgesia) on a multicultural level among general nurses from the Czech Republic (CZ) and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA). MATERIALS AND METHODS: A cross-sectional study was performed by the distribution of the questionnaires. We distributed 403 questionnaires in CZ and 550 questionnaires in KSA. Statistical analysis was performed by program STATA15 at the significance level ∝ =0.05. RESULTS: The study included total of 833 respondents (N = 360 CZ; N = 473 KSA). In both countries, the majority of the respondents were female (CZ 89, 7%; KSA 92, 4%). The average age was similar in both countries (38.6 years in CZ and 35.6 years in KSA). We found out that the use of the treatment through PCA differs between both countries according to the type of department (P < 0.05). We verified that the frequency of use of the PCA method differs in the post-anesthesia care unit between CZ and KSA (P = 0.000). CONCLUSIONS: According to the available results, we can state that the general nurses in KSA care for patients with the PCA much more often and have more experience with the PCA than general nurses from CZ.