BRITO, R. C. B.; http://lattes.cnpq.br/5011645047658190; BRITO, Rebecca Castelo Branco de.
Resumo:
Introduction: Acute pain after total abdominal hysterectomy is recurring issue of great
impact in the surgical patient's quality of life, but still little studied. There is no consensus
on the best method to analyze and verify postsurgical pain, which could be important as
to implement its therapy. Objectives: To determine the correlation between the
measurement of pain by visual analog sale and the pain measurement utilizing the
algometer. Methods: Cohort study conducted at the Alcides Carneiro Universitary
Hospital and Pedro I Hospital, located in Campina Grande, Paraiba, from June 2013 to
August 2014. There were included 90 patients referred for total abdominal hysterectomy,
which were tested for the Beck depression inventory and the Katz scale. Following the
consummation of the total abdominal hysterectomy, patients were tested for visual
analog scale and the measurement of pain by algometer 12, 24 and 48 hours after the
procedure. Results: The age range of the patients was 32 to 60 years, mean age of 48
years.12 hours after hysterectomy, 75% of patients had mild or no pain according to the
visual analog scale, while with the algometer this number was 73%. After 24 hours, the
percentage of patients with absence or mild pain was reduced to 64%concerning the
visual analog scale. With the use of the algometer, this percentage was 71%. Finally,
after 48 hours, the percentage of patients with mild or no pain was 78% as measured
with the algometer and 89% with the visual analog scale. We used the Spearman
correlation coefficient to determine the association between the two methods of pain
verification. Conclusion: The observed correlation between the methods was significant,
with a significance level (p) of 0.01 for all measurements. This study was approved by
the Ethics in Research Committee of the University Hospital Alcides Carneiro, under the
CAAE 05086913.1.1001.5182 registration. The project financing was carried out with
resources provided by the staff, with no conflicts of interest declared.