• Liangyu Fang, Laijuan Chen, Hongling Sun, Yinchuan Xu, and Jingfeng Jin.
• Department of Anesthesiology, School of Medicine, The Second Affiliated Hospital of Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, China. Electronic address: a88513103@163.com.
• Pain Manag Nurs. 2021 Apr 1; 22 (2): 198-204.

BackgroundEffective pain management is closely related to the prognosis of patients after surgery. Setting up acute pain service is among the effective strategies to control pain. The operation of acute pain service is mostly dominated by anesthesiologists; however, control of postsurgical pain is still unsatisfactory. Nurses are the main force for providing postoperative care of patients, and their role in acute pain service is crucial. Therefore, in the current study, we have developed a nurse-led pain relief model that emphasizes the central role of nurses during the entire surgical procedure. However, the effect of using this model for pain management among abdominal surgical patients remains unknown.AimsThe current study was conducted to investigate the effect of using a nurse-led pain relief model for pain management among abdominal surgical patients.DesignA single-center, propensity score-matched, controlled before-after study.MethodsThe patients, hospitalized for abdominal surgery in a university-affiliated hospital from January 2015 to December 2017, were enrolled and divided into group A (hospitalized before nurse-led pain relief model implementation, from January, 2015 to October, 2016) and group B (hospitalized after nurse-led pain relief model implementation, from October, 2016, to December, 2017) using propensity score match assay. The researchers compared the quality of acute pain management, the main side effects of pain management, and nurses' pain knowledge and attitude between group A and group B.ResultsA total of 2851 patients undergoing nonemergency abdominal surgery were enrolled in the current study and were propensity matched 1:1 into two groups with 1,127 subjects in each group. The quality of acute pain management postsurgery was better after implementation of the nurse-led pain relief model. More patients received higher numerical rating scales cores (≥4 points) at indicated time points after surgery in group A compared with group B (14.20% vs. 12.24% 6 hours postsurgery, p = .001; 12.33% vs. 8.52% 12 hours postsurgery, p = .004; 12.95% vs. 3.99% 24 hours postsurgery, p = .036; 16.06% vs. 7.19% 48 hours postsurgery, p = .001). Furthermore, the occurrence of nausea and vomiting during pain management were significantly decreased in patients from group B (nausea: X2 = 38.926, p < .05; vomit: X2 = 39.302, p < .05). Additionally, after using the nurse-led pain relief model, nurses were more open to improving their knowledge and attitudes to pain management (p < .05).ConclusionOur study demonstrated that a nurse-led pain relief model can enhance the quality of acute pain management among post-abdominal surgical patients, suggesting that such a model can be an effective intervention for providing a better pain control among postsurgical patients.Copyright © 2020 American Society for Pain Management Nursing. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

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