The specifics of nursing in the treatment of pain in patients after cardiosurgical operations

Pain is a phenomenon perceived as an undesirable experience of physical and mental suffering that we want to avoid at any cost. It is common and expected though that during surgeries patients experience pain due to interrupting the integrity of skin and hypodermis by originating a surgical incision. Complex cardiac surgeries, which usually take several hours and create large cuts, require effective analgesic treatment during postoperative recovery ensuring proper pain relief. This bachelor thesis aims to examine the specifics of nursing within analgesic treatment of patients´pain after cardiac surgeries. A theoretical part focuses on general findings about pain, the ways of pain evaluation, the specifics of postoperative pain. This part also introduces the most common cardiac surgeries and pharmacologic and nonpharmacologic pain treatments. A practical part of the thesis consists of a quantitative research applying semi-structured interviews with ten nurses and ten patients of a cardiac surgical ward. Results show that nurses discover certain specifics in providing pain relief while nursing patients after cardiac surgeries. The research concerns not only with treatment of the pain from a surgical incision, but with treatment of secondary types of pain as well: back pain, painful cough, pain caused with a chest tube. In the interviews, nurses and patients identified a postoperative pain similarly, they identically described pain evaluation executed by nurses, and agreed on high standards of analgesic treatment on this specific ward. The bachelor thesis aspires to be a source of information for nursing students and a proper guide for incoming nurses who are about to be employed at a cardiac surgical ward