Virtually everyone experiences some type of pain at some point in life. Pain is often classified as acute or chronic. Acute pain subsides as healing takes place. While chronic pain is persistent and is subdivided into cancer-related pain and non-malignant pain. This article focuses on management of acute pain experienced by hospitalized adults.
Recent data suggest that about 80 % of patients experience pain postoperatively with between 11 and 20 % experiencing severe pain. Despite the availability of analgesics to manage pain, the incidence of postoperative pain has remained stable. Thus, acute pain associated with surgical and diagnostic procedures is a common occurrence in hospitals and remains inadequately managed for many patients. Importance of controlling pain Inadequately managed pain can lead to adverse physical and psychological patient outcomes for individual patients and…
