[Evaluation of the postoperative acute pain after heart surgery]. / Evaluación del dolor postoperatorio agudo tras cirugía cardiaca.

ABSTRACT

INTRODUCTION: Pain is one of the main symptoms reported by patients who have had heart surgery. OBJECTIVES: To describe the pain and explain the possible association among demographics, psychological and biological variables of the patients subjected to heart surgery with pain intensity during the postoperative in the ICU. PATIENTS AND METHOD: A descriptive, longitudinal study conducted between February 2008 and January 2009 on patients subjected to heart surgery with admission to the ICU of the Hospital of Navarra was conducted. A preoperatory interview was made with registration of sociodemographic, biological and psychological variables. Pain intensity was monitored during the first 48 hours of ICU stay with the Verbal Numeric Scale (VNS) of pain. Accepted level of significance was p<0.05. RESULTS: A sample of 69 patients with mean age of 62, 26% women and 74% men was included. A superior statistical association was found between postoperative pain levels for age<65 years, bypass grafting with internal mammary artery and preoperatory anxiety variables. There was a significant increase in analgesic consumption for incomes>1400 €/month, bypass grafting with internal mammary artery and preoperatory anxiety. CONCLUSIONS: Postoperative pain after heart surgery show significant individual variability. In our study, age, bypass grafting with internal mammary artery and preoperatory anxiety were shown as predictive variables of postoperative pain in patients undergoing heart surgery.