Using a patient-controlled analgesia multimedia intervention for improving analgesia quality

Abstract

Aim: To evaluate the effects of analgesia quality provided by a patient-controlled analgesia multimedia intervention on the pain management of postsurgical patients in Taiwan.

Background: The concept of patient-controlled analgesia has become the mainstream pain treatment method because of its characteristic of instant self-administering medication. It is an important mission of nursing professionals to communicate effective and correct knowledge of patient-controlled analgesia on how to relieve pain and improve quality of care.

Design: A quasi-experiment research design was used for this study. Sixty subjects recruited from a medical teaching centre of Taiwan were assigned into either the experimental (n = 30) or control group (n = 30). The experimental group received the patient-controlled analgesia multimedia intervention. The control group only received one-on-one patient education of routine nursing guide and pain management with pamphlet. The pain cognition and American Pain Society patient outcome questionnaires were used as measures of effects for the interventions.

Results: The results showed the experimental group, compared with the control group, had significant improvement in pain cognition and analgesia quality. There is significant correlation between pain cognition and analgesia quality.

Conclusions: After intervening, the patients approved of the patient-controlled analgesia multimedia intervention and affirmed the value of early acquisition of such information to their postsurgical treatments and recoveries. The higher the pain cognition patients obtained, the better the analgesia quality patients had.

Relevance to clinical practice: Applying the patient-controlled analgesia multimedia intervention for surgical patients to improve pain cognition, the utility of patient-controlled analgesia, pain relief and patient satisfaction is recommended.