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Abstract

Scoliosis surgery is one of the most extensive elective pediatric surgical procedures performed today. The surgery is known to cause severe and excruciating pain and requires advanced pain management and nursing skills. Until now, scoliosis surgery has mainly been studied in terms of corrective surgical outcomes, techniques for surgery and pain management. Adolescents� narratives and experiences of recovery after scoliosis surgery, as well as psychological aspects in correlation to postoperative pain have seldom been studied. In four studies with qualitative, quantitative and mixed methods approach it has been shown that adolescent patients are experiencing high levels of stress before surgery and severe postoperative pain. Preoperative stress showed to correlate significantly with postoperative pain, and postoperative pain showed to correlate with levels of stress six months after surgery. During recovery they have to struggle with persistent pain, constipation, nausea, lack of energy, loss of control over the body and they have to struggle back to the normal life. Nightmares concerning the perioperative experiences were appearing up to two years after surgery and some of the studied adolescents showed post-traumatic stress symptoms. With targeted interventions aiming at identifying levels of preoperative stress, promotion of coping techniques, improved postoperative pain management and active nursing follow up after hospital discharge it is possible to improve perioperative care among adolescents going through scoliosis surgery.

Biography

Anna-Clara Rullander has completed her PhD from Umeå University in Sweden, and defended her thesis in December 2015. She is now planning to pursue her Post-doctoral studies in the area of Scoliosis Surgery and Interventions aimed at Optimizing Perioperative Care. She has published four articles and presented her research at five international conferences.

Email: anna-clara.rullander@umu.se