Introduction: Frequently, postoperative pain lacks of systematic evaluation and follow-up.
Objectives: 1. To determine the proportion of cases without appropriate pain relief in an Obstetrics and Gynecology hospital service. 2. To describe analgesics' use patterns and medication errors detected in a case series.
Methods: Our study was conducted in a private teaching hospital. To fulfill the first objective, an analogue numeric scale and a color scale were applied to 278 patients, in order to evaluate severity of pain. Measurements equal or higher to 30 mm were considered as inappropriate pain control. For the second objective, a retrospective random sample of 42 cases was selected to analyze analgesic use patterns and to detect medication errors.
Results: The 278 cases contributed with 3526 pain registries, average 12.7 +/- 5.46 measurements per patient, 348 data were > or = 30 mm, involving 136/278 patients. For the second objective we included patients with an average age 34.1 +/- 11 years-old, diagnoses were: cesareans n = 15, labor n = 4, myomectomy n = 4, hysterectomy n = 15 y 13 with diverse disease conditions, where an average of 2.47 +/- 1.48 analgesics were prescribed, 8 cases with simultaneous NSAIDs use, 24 cases had medication errors as overdose, therapeutic duplicity, transcription omission, none of them with consequences for patients.
Conclusions: 1. Systematic pain evaluation and its scaled management, according to severity, are essential to improve postoperative health care quality. 2. Studies, as the one presented here, are desirable in any postoperative setting.