Summary of the best evidence for pain management in patients after cardiac surgery

Objective  To retrieve, evaluate, and summarize the best evidence on pain management in patients after cardiac surgery.

Methods  Systematic searches were conducted on data on pain management in patients after cardiac surgery of BMJ Best Practice, UpToDate, USGuidesnet, USGuidesnet International, UK National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence, Ontario Medical Association of Canada, Scottish Interhospital Guidesnet, Joanna Briggs Institute (JBI) database of Evidence-Based Health care centres, Cochrane Library, PubMed, Web of Science, China National Knowledge Infrastructure, Wanfang Database and China Biomedical Literature Database, including guidelines, systematic reviews, summaries of evidence, expert consensus, and related original studies. The search period was from the establishment of the database to June 2022. The quality of literature and the level of evidence were evaluated by the evaluation criteria and evidence grading system of JBI evidence-based health care center.

Results  A total of 11 literatures were included, including 2 guidelines, 4 expert consensus, 4 systematic reviews and 1 randomized controlled trial. Finally, 23 pieces of best evidence were summarized from four aspects: pain management principles, pain evaluation, drug analgesic strategies and non-drug analgesic strategies.

Conclusion  This study summarizes the best evidence for pain management in patients after cardiac surgery, and provides evidence-based evidence for pain management in these patients.