Evaluation of pain and quality of life in patients undergoing inguinal hernia surgery

INTRODUCTION AND OBJECTIVE: Postoperative pain after inguinal hernia repair is an important complication that negatively affects quality of life and limits daily life activities. Education and supportive interventions given in nursing care have an effect on reducing pain and supporting recovery. The aim of the study is to evaluate the effect of education given to patients who will undergo inguinal hernia surgery before surgery and at discharge on pain and quality of life. MATERIAL AND METHODS: This quantitative study was conducted with 56 patients in a pre-experimental design with a single group pre-test-post-test model, descriptive and cross-sectional. Data were collected using literature and guide-based forms: "Patient Information Form", "Visual Analog Scale (VAS)-Pain" and "SF-12 Quality of Life Scale". Data were transferred to IBM SPSS Statistics 26 program and analyzed with various statistical tests. P<0.05 was accepted as significance. RESULTS: Time-dependent VAS pain score changes were found to be significant (p<0.05). Preoperative 2.07±1.09, postoperative 0th day 7.89±0.76, postoperative 1st day 3.68±0.69 and postoperative 1st month pain score average was determined as 0.98±0.80. When SF-12 Quality of Life scores were examined according to time; there was no significant change in terms of social function score (p>0.05), while there was a significant change in terms of physical function, physical and emotional role limitation, mental health, energy, pain, general perception of health sub-dimension scores (p<0.05). CONCLUSION: It was observed that effective postoperative pain management and nursing education positively affected the quality of life. A significant decrease in the patients' pain levels was observed one month after the surgery and an improvement in their quality of life was recorded. The findings show the importance of preoperative and postoperative nursing education and the need to support these practices. Keywords: Inguinal hernia, pain, quality of life, nursing care, postoperative