• T Terai and H Yukioka.
• Department of Anesthesia, Osaka Railway Hospital of West Japan Railway Company.
• Masui. 1999 Sep 1;48(9):981-5.

AbstractThe agreement between scores for observer-reported face scale (FS) and the self-reported visual analog scale (VAS) in postoperative pain assessment has not been compared for different types of surgery and for different times in the postoperative course. Five grade FS (1-5) judged by a nurse was compared with VAS (0-100 mm) reported by patients who had undergone hepatectomy (group H, n = 60) or esophageal cancer surgery by a thoracoabdominal procedure (group E, n = 50). Postoperative analgesia was mainly achieved by epidural morphine administration combined with lidocaine or bupivacaine in both groups. Pain measurement was performed at admission to the ICU, 1, 2, 6, and 10 hours later, and the following morning in group H, and 0.5, 1, 2, 6, 10, and 14 hours after tracheal extubation in group E. VAS scores (means +/- SD) were respectively 46 +/- 29 and 31 +/- 25 at ICU admission and one hour later in group H, and 41 +/- 36 and 36 +/- 33 thirty minutes and one hour after tracheal extubation in group E. FS values (means +/- SD) were respectively 2.6 +/- 1.2 and 2.1 +/- 1.1 at ICU admission and one hour later in group H, and 2.4 +/- 1.3 and 2.2 +/- 1.2 thirty minutes and one hour after tracheal extubation in group E. VAS and FS decreased in both groups over time postoperatively. A fair degree of agreement was found between VAS and FS scores in group H at ICU admission and one hour later (weighted kappa values = 0.29 and 0.28, respectively); on the other hand, good agreement between these two scores was found in group E thirty minutes and one hour after tracheal extubation (weighted kappa values = 0.67 and 0.62, respectively). Weighted kappa values decreased thereafter in group E, but did not change in group H over the postoperative course. We conclude that postoperative pain assessment based on facial expression is more useful early after extubation for patients who have undergone esophagectomy than for those who have undergone hepatectomy.

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