The magnitude and associated factors of post-operative pain among adult patients

BACKGROUND: Postoperative pain continues to be a serious consequence of surgical intervention. Several factors may contribute to the development of postoperative pain; these could be preoperative factors, demographic factors, anesthetic factors, and surgical factors. OBJECTIVE: The aim of this study was to assess the magnitude and factors associated with postoperative pain among surgical patients. METHODS: An institutional-based prospective longitudinal study included 265 postoperative patients from the surgical wards of Gambella General Hospital from April 15, 2021, to June 30, 2021. A consecutive sampling technique was used to recruit study participants. The patients were followed up for 24 h postoperatively. A numerical rating scale (NRS-11) is used for the assessment of pain. Data analysis was done using the Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS) 25. Logistic regression analysis was used to calculate the association between dependent and independent variables with a 95% confidence interval and a p-value<0.05 was considered statistically significant. RESULTS: A total of 270 data points were collected. Of these, a total of 265 with a 98.1% response rate were analyzed. The incidence of postoperative pain was 69%, 74%, and 77.0% at 2 h, 12 h, and 24 h, respectively. The following factors were strongly associated with the dependent variable: patient age, 18–45 years old [AOR = 2.8; (95%CI: 1.13, 6.74, p = 0.026)], skin incision length, 10 cm [AOR = 2.5; (95%CI: 1.30, 5.13, p = 0.007)], preoperative pain [AOR = 2.4, (95%CI: 1.02, 5.60, p = 0.045)], and surgeon experience [AOR = 2.1, (95%CI: CONCLUSION: and Recommendation: In the current study the magnitude of postoperative pain was high, 220 patients were complaining POP (83%). Age of the patient, length of skin incision, preoperative pain, and experience of surgeons were the independent associated factors for the experience of postoperative pain. Preoperative pain management should exercise among adult surgical patients in order to reduce the incidence of postoperative pain, and the length of surgical skin incisions should be minimized.