Evaluation of the relationship between pain perception and postoperative pain severity in patients undergoing abdominal surgery

This study aims to analyze the effects of pain perception on postoperative pain of the patients that underwent abdominal surgery. 126 patients that underwent abdominal surgery in the Clinics of General Surgery and Gynecology and Obstetrics of a State Hospital constituted the sample of the study. The study which was conducting the dates between September 2018 and January 2019 that descriptive Information Form, Pain Characteristics Form and Pain Belief Scale were used for data collection. Descriptive statistics, t-test, ANOVA and Pearson's correlation were used for data analysis. Mean age of the participants was 48.63, 73% of the participants were female and 67.5% were graduates of primary school. 86.1% of the participants had a pain intensity of moderate and above, 96.7% stated that the intensity of pain decreased over time, 46.8% expressed that pain intensity was less than expected and 92.1% stated that they had problems with activities due to the intensity of pain. VAS score was the highest on the 8th hour and decreased significantly on the 16th, 24th and the 32nd hours (p<0.05). Gender and pain intensity, which was more than expected, was related with VAS (p<0.05). Mean scores for Organic Beliefs and Psychological Beliefs were 3.12 and 2.37, respectively. Scores obtained from psychological beliefs decreased as the educational status of the patients increased and the patients that underwent gynecological surgical operation obtained a higher mean score from the organic beliefs subscale (p<0.05). We found a statistically significant relationship between the mean organic belief score and the VAS score for the 24th hour (p<0.05) whereas no significant relationship was found between the mean score of psychological beliefs and the VAS scores (p>0.05). The findings of this study suggest that the patients who has been undergone abdominal surgery have moderate and over pain level pain, gender and pain expectancy influenced experienced pain, and education and the type of surgery had an impact on beliefs about pain. Within this context, determination of perceived pain and beliefs about pain is important for maintaining efficient pain control. Besides, perception about pain is important to shape and individualize healthcare on patient pain.