A Quasi Experimental Study to Assess the Effectiveness of Abdominal Binder on Ambulatory Pain among Post-operative Patients at Selected Hospital, Coimbatore

Abdominal binders are effective in reducing ambulatory pain and improving early ambulation. The study aimed to identify the effect of abdominal binder on ambulatory pain among post-operative patients with abdominal surgery. Quasi-experimental post-test-only control group design was adopted in this study. 30 patients in experimental group and 30 patients in control group were selected based on inclusive and exclusive criteria by using purposive sampling technique. The demographic variables and clinical variables were collected from the postoperative patients. Abdominal binder was applied to the experimental group and the control group received routine postoperative care. Post-test was done for both groups to assess the ambulatory pain by using a numerical pain rating scale twice a day for first three postoperative days. It was identified on the first day that the mean levels of ambulatory pain for the experimental and control group were 8.35 and 9.07 with a mean difference of 0.72. Standard deviations were 0.787 and 0.435 respectively. The calculated value of 0.286 was less than the table value at 0.05 level of significance. On the second day mean levels of ambulatory pain for the experimental and control group were 5.93 and 7.28 with a mean difference of 1.35. Standard deviations were 0.81 and 0.692 respectively. The calculated value of 6.035 was greater than the table value at a 0.001 level of significance. On the third day mean levels of ambulatory pain for the experimental and control group were 3.28 and 5.18 with a mean difference of 1.9. Standard deviations were 0.663 and 0.748 respectively. The calculated value of 3.653 was greater than the table value at a 0.001 level of significance. Hence, the researcher concludes that the abdominal binder is a non-elastic, cost effective method on reducing the ambulatory pain among postoperative patients.