Background: Pain is one of the most common symptoms experienced by patients after surgeries. Inadequate postoperative pain management is an international problem and the need to improve its management is well documented. The aim of the study was to assess nursing reports related to the patients' pain intensity and quality, concomitant symptoms, use of scales in pain assessment, and compliance with the national guideline after surgery. Methods: This study was a retrospective cohort; samples were nurse records of patients who had elective surgery. Result: Only 6% of the patients' pain records included pain intensity which was not measured with standard scales. More than half of all injections were opioid analgesic which is in contrast to the guidelines of the Iranian Ministry of Health. Pain assessment was higher in women and by nurses with more than 15 years of working experience. Conclusion: to conclude, the patients' pain was not assessed properly in terms of intensity, quality, and associated symptoms. Therefore, training and motivating nurses is very important in this context and should be incorporated in nurses' academic and continuous educational courses.
Treatment of Cutaneous leishmaniasis (CL) is based on using antimoniate derivatives; patients’ compliance for systemic injections is low due to the pain and systemic complications. In this randomized open trial, the efficacy of intra-lesional (IL) injections of meglumine antimoniate (MA) once a week vs. twice a week in the treatment of Anthrpoponothic CL caused by L. tropica was studied. Eligible volunteer patients were selected according to inclusion/exclusion criteria. The included patients were randomly allocated to receive IL-MA injections once a week or twice a week. The primary outcome was set as complete healing of the lesion(s), and defined as complete re-epithelialization and absence of induration in the lesions. A total of 180 parasitologicaly proven CL patients caused by L. tropica were recruited, 90 patients were treated with weekly IL-MA and 90 patients received IL-MA twice a week. The complete cure was 87.9% vs. 89.2% in the group received weekly and twice a week IL-MA injections, respectively (P = 0.808). Patients’ compliance was acceptable and side effects were limited to a few local allergic reactions to MA. Median time to healing was significantly shorter in patients who received IL-MA twice a week (median ± SE) 37±3.8, (CI: 29.6–44.4) days compared to whom received IL-MA once a week 60±2.3, (CI: 55.6–64.5) days (P< 0.001), however the number of injections was higher in group who received IL-MA twice a week (12 vs. 9 injections). In conclusion, the rate of cure in the group of CL patients with IL-MA twice a week was not significantly different from the group who received IL-MA once a week shorten, but the duration of healing was shorter in the group who received IL-MA twice a week while the group received more injections so is recommended to use IL-MA once a week due to the fact the compliance is acceptable with limited side effects.
Clinical Trial Registration: IRCT20081130001475N13; https://en.irct.ir/.
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