The role of the nurse anesthetist in the planning of postoperative pain management.

Adequate pain relief after surgery is essential for avoiding pain-associated stress and patient comfort in the postoperative period. The Swedish nurse anesthetist has an important role in the intraoperative management of the surgical patient by assessing and moderating individual physiological response evoked by surgical stimuli during general anesthesia. The extent to which knowledge of specific individual response patterns are used to plan postoperative pain management is unknown. The aim of the present study was to assess the role of the nurse anesthetist in planning early postoperative pain management for surgical patients. Nurse anesthetists (N = 101) at 4 academic hospitals in Sweden responded to a questionnaire focusing, in addition to demographic data, on intraoperative routines for postoperative pain management, perceived clinical relevance of used routines, personal involvement (in addition to existing routines) in postoperative pain management, factors influencing pain alleviation requirements, and the potential role of the nurse anesthetist for improved postoperative pain management. We found that type of anesthesia and type of surgical procedure were both factors considered important for postoperative pain management. A majority of the participants believed that pain management approaches were not appropriately individualized to the patient.