• J Pozas Abril, M J Toraño Olivera, and I Latorre-Marco.
• Unidad de Cuidados Intensivos Médicos, Hospital General Universitario Gregorio Marañon, Madrid, España. Máster en Cuidados Críticos. Universidad Rey Juan Carlos, Madrid, España. Electronic address: juliapozas@gmail.com.
• Enferm Intensiva. 2014 Jan 1;25(1):24-9.

IntroductionPatients in the immediate postoperative period of cardiac surgery have abolished communication skills and therefore can not express pain. Pain produces significant adverse effects that alter the patients' course. Therefore, identifying and controlling them will lead to increased quality of care for the critical patient.ObjectiveTo measure the degree of pain in patients in the immediate postoperative period of cardiac surgery by scaling Behavioural Pain Scale.Material And MethodAn observational, prospective and longitudinal. Patients over 18 years in the first 24 hours of admission with no communication problems who were under sedation and subjected to mechanical ventilation were included. Twenty patients were enrolled in the study. The Behavioural Pain Scale (BPS) was used during two procedures usually considered as a painful practice in the literature, that is, mobilization and/or postural changes and aspiration of secretions.ResultsTwenty-seven measurements were made of procedures considered as painful. The results obtained by applying the scale BPS showed that 70.4% of patients had no pain, 22.2% had mild to moderate pain and 7.4% had unacceptable pain.ConclusionThis study has identified that the patients suffer pain during the postoperative period. Within these patients, there is a small, but not insignificant number whose pain is unacceptable during this period. This finding serves as a beginning for a line of research to improve the handling of the postoperative pain during immediate post-operative cardiac surgery.Copyright © 2013 Elsevier España, S.L. y SEEIUC. All rights reserved.

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