Patients' Experiences of Pain and Postoperative Nausea and Vomiting in the Early Postoperative Period After an Elective Knee Arthroplasty

Abstract

Purpose: The aim of this study is to explore patients' experience of pain and postoperative nausea and vomiting (PONV) in the early postoperative period after knee arthroplasties.

Design: This is a retrospective cohort study with a quantitative approach. Data from patients registered in the Swedish Perioperative Registry were used. We used the Strenghtening the Reporting of Observational Studies in Epidemiology (STROBE) guidelines for cross-sectional studies.

Methods: Data were collected from patients (N = 439) undergoing knee arthroplasties. The analysis was performed with descriptive and analytic statistics.

Findings: The findings indicate that women experienced significantly higher levels of pain than men and suffered significantly more often from PONV. However, the relationship of postoperative pain and PONV was not significant. There was also no significance for the relationship among postoperative pain, PONV, and age.

Conclusions: Care needs to be sensitive to differences in experiencing pain and PONV depending on sex or gender bias, with a goal of increasing the equality in care.

Keywords: PONV; knee arthroplasty; pain; postoperative; sex.