The effect of cold application for the patients pain developed by removing the mediastinum and thorax tubes after open cardiovascular surgery

Purpose: The research was conducted to indicate the importance evaulate the activity of cold application to reduce pain while removing the mediastinum and thoraks tubes. Method: The study was performed with 40 patient who stayed in intensive care unit. The patients in intensive care has had a open hearth surgery and had been in a private hospital (20 patients for experiment and 20 ones for control group). The data was collected with face to face meeting using 'Patient Diagnos Form', 'Pain Evaluation Form(for experimental group)', 'Numarical Pain Evaluation Scale' before removal of tubes, pain evaluation and skin temperature measurement were performed on the experimental group. Right after cold application was applied for twenty minutes and the pain was analysied.Before cold aplication, before the tube is removed, after five minuted from the removal of the tubes, skin temparature mesaurement and pain evaluation test applied three times. On the other hand, Pain evaluation was performed on the control group three times without cold application. Symptoms: After analysis, we confirmed that the general specification of the patient groups are very similar (p>0,05). The pain evaluation score while removing tubes and five minutes later removing tubes of control group are confirmed that meaning fully higher than experimental ones( p<0,05: p>0,01). Result: The cold application before removing mediastinum and thorax tubes helps to decrease the pain and it can be applicable for everyone except who has cold allergy. Key Words: Pain, heart surgery cold application, mediastinum and thorax tube