Direct Patient Feedback on Postoperative Pain

Postoperative pain is common, can be severe, has a negative impact on outcomes after surgery and brings along major economic costs for society. A substantial part of patients may develop persistent post-surgical pain. Severity and duration of pain after surgery appear to have a role in this process but the transition from acute postoperative pain to chronic pain is only partially understood. Effective treatment of postoperative pain is hampered by several barriers, including the way measurement of pain and registration of pain-scores are carried out by nurses in clinical practice. Modern technology offers new opportunities for pain measurement and direct patient feedback on postoperative pain, during and also after clinical admission. We developed a smartphone application that allows clinical patients to report pain scores and other pain related outcomes on postoperative pain with their own telephone device. Patient reported pain scores \> 3 on a Numeric Rating Scale (NRS) 0-10 are immediately passed on to the nurse who receives a message of the reported pain score. This can lead to earlier detection of pain and a more timely treatment resulting in improved patient reported outcomes on postoperative pain