Preventive Care in Nursing and Midwifery Journal

Background: Pain control during and after surgeries can reduce subsequent complications, improve the recovery period of the patient after the surgery and immediately after discharge from the hospital, and shorten the length of stay in the hospital.

Objectives: The present research aimed to study the relationship between the depth of anesthesia and severity of pain after general anesthesia.

Methods: This prospective study carried out on 57 patients undergoing hernia surgery during the summer of 2014. The subjects were selected based on convenience sampling method. The same technique of anesthesia was used for all patients. The depth of anesthesia was monitored using bispectral index (BIS) and recorded at five-minute intervals. In addition, the severity of pain in the recovery and during the first 6 hours after the surgery was measured by a numerical scale. The obtained data were statistically analyzed using ANOVA and correlation coefficient in SPSS-18 at a significant level of P<0.05.

Results: According to the results, the mean age of subjects was 45.54±13.46. In terms of gender, 36 subjects were male and 21 of them were female. The normal depth of anesthesia (40-60) was experienced by 59.6% of patients. The results also showed that there is a significant correlation between depth of anesthesia and severity of pain in the recovery (P=0.001, r=0.694) and during the first 6 hours after the surgery (P=0.001, r=0.734).

Conclusion: The present study showed that monitoring depth of anesthesia during surgery, in addition to helping nurses to monitor patients more accurately, can prevent some of the complications of anesthesia such as severe pain.