The effect of progressive muscle relaxation exercise on pain before the removal of the chest tube

This study, designed as a randomized, single-blind and controlled experimental study, aims to investigate the effect of progressive muscle relaxation exercise, one of the non-pharmacological pain control methods, on the level of pain in adult patients who are in Thoracic surgery service in Adana Training and Research Hospital. The participants, whose age ranges from 18 to 74, are 94 patients who met the criteria of the study, who had chest tube, and who were having treatment in the Thoracic Surgery service.The data were collected through the ?Patient Description Form? and ?Visual Analogue Scale-VAS? that evaluated the patients? level of pain and analyzed using SPSS 19.0 package programming. After they had been informed about the study and their informed consents were obtained, the patients were evaluated in terms of their vital findings. The participants? level of pain was evaluated using Visual Analogue Scale (VAS) in three intervals for both groups: 15 minutes before the application, right after the application, and 15 minutes after the application.Findings show that the mean age of the patients was 41,6±16,4. It was also found that 85% of the patients was male, 72% of them was married and 98% of them was graduated from an education center. VAS pain level scores of the patients in the experimental group right after the removal of the tube (4,9±2,1) and their pain scores 15 minutes after the removal (2±1,8) were lower than the control group (7,1±2 - 5,4±2,1). The progressive muscle relaxation exercise was found to reduce the pain experienced during the removal of the chest tube (p<0.05). Thus, progressive muscle relaxation exercise which is one of the non-pharmacological methods is suggested to be used as a complementary treatment in chest removal application together with the pharmacological methods.Key Words: Pain, Chest Tube, Progressive Muscle Relaxation Exercise