Background: Pain is the most common symptom among inpatients, and patient-controlled analgesia (PCA) is one of the effective pain management methods for postoperative patients.
Aims: This study aimed to identify the predictors of analgesic consumption in patients using postoperative PCA.
Design: As part of a descriptive and retrospective study, data were collected from the nursing records of 662 patients who underwent postoperative intravenous PCA for three days after surgery at one medical institution. Stepwise multiple regression analyses were conducted to select significant variables that could predict total analgesic consumption.
Results: The results demonstrated that surgical sites, physical characteristics, donation surgery, and postoperative pain significantly influenced total analgesic consumption (POD 3, R2 = 53%, p < .001).
Conclusion: The present findings provide valuable information for the effective postoperative administration of intravenous PCA and may contribute to the development of customized patient-centered pain management intervention by nurses through more accurate predictions of analgesic consumption based on individual characteristics, the surgical site, and the type of surgery-especially organ donation surgery. This study could contribute to improving preventive interventions by general nurses as well as pain control nurses by enabling more accurate predictions of patients' pain and consumption of self-controlled analgesic agents based on personal characteristics and surgical characteristics.
Copyright © 2019 American Society for Pain Management Nursing. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.