Informal survey about post-op pain management!

[wannabecnl]

Hi, everybody. I am working on a project for nursing school, and I need some real-life info about how desired comfort level is being assessed prior to surgery. This is not a scientific survey; it's more of a straw poll.

Specifically, what is your institution's "procedure" for finding out the patient's desired comfort level (i.e., the pain score they want to reach with meds, alternatives, etc.), and what really happens in practice? Is this part of the pre-op interview that might take place on the phone two weeks ahead of time... and if so, how is the info communicated to the PACU staff?

ASPAN and the National Guidelines Clearinghouse recommend asking patients about their comfort goals, but I have never seen this actually happen as a patient or as a student. ASPAN did some research and found that comfort goals were assessed in about 20% of cases, but that was a long time ago. I'm just trying to get an idea of what is really happening right now in real hospitals, not just what is recommended.

Thank you!!!