ABSTRACT
70 percent of patients experience the pain after surgery as the most common complication. Lack of pain relief after surgery can lead to surgical complications, prolonged duration of hospitalization and delayed recovery. The purpose of this study is to compare the effect of two methods, patient controlled analgesia and intramuscular injection inpatients after abdominal surgery. This clinical trial study was conducted through convenience sampling on 60 patients referred to Amir Al Momenin hospital for abdominal surgery in Ahwaz in 2010. Patients were randomly allocated into two groups [30 in each group] of patient's controlling their pain through infusion pump [intervention group] and intramuscular injection [control group]. For gathering data demographic information form and the visual analog scale VAS were used. Pain severity and analgesic drug consumption was assessed every 6 hours during 24 hours after surgery. The data were analyzed by SPSS 16, repeated measures ANOVA test. There was a significant difference between the two groups in relation to the mean of pain severity and the extent of drug consumption after abdominal surgery, where as the pain level in the intervention group was less than the control group [P=0.03], but the mean of drug consumption in the intervention group was more than the control group [P<0.001]. According to study findings, education of patient controlled analgesia can be effective way to reduce pain after surgery, thus this method will be had a critical role in promotion of quality of nursing care and increasing of patient communication with staff.