The Effect of Heat Therapy on Shoulder Pain and Physiologic Parameters After Laparoscopic Cholecystectomy: A Randomized Controlled Trail

In the management of shoulder pain experienced by individuals after laparoscopic cholecystectomy, pharmacological methods such as nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAID), gabapentinoids, local analgesics, cyclooxygenase-2 (COX-2) inhibitors, transversus abdominis plane (TAP) block and opioids (Eftekhariyazdi et al. 2020; Gurusamy et al. 2014; Salazar-Perra et al. 2020) and peripheral techniques, cognitive behavioral techniques, and non-pharmacological methods other than these can be applied in order to increase the effectiveness of pharmacological methods or to increase the effectiveness of pharmacological methods (İbrahim and Ali 2020; Komann et al. et al. 2020; Pak et al. 2016; Tick et al. 2018; Şimsek Wild 2019).

One of the techniques commonly used to reduce or relieve pain among peripheral techniques is hot application. Hot application activates the gate control mechanism, stimulates tactile receptors, removes metabolic wastes, increases the release of endorphins, reduces muscle spasms as a result of the change in viscoelastic properties in tissues, reduces pressure, tension and hypoxia in nerve endings, raises the pain threshold, provides sedation and relaxes the individual. it reduces or relieves pain (Ibrahim and Ali 2020; Perry et al. 2017). In order to benefit from the therapeutic effect of hot application, the application time should not exceed 30 minutes. If the application period lasts more than 35-40 minutes, congestion occurs in the tissue, and in hot applications lasting more than one hour, vasoconstriction may occur instead of vasodilation, and the opposite of the desired effect may occur. In hot application, the temperature is as important as the time. Although there is no evidence-based guideline for hot applications, the temperature should be 40-45ºC.

It is recommended that hot application at these temperatures has a therapeutic effect by giving heat to the skin (Ibrahim and Ali 2020; Türkmen 2017). In addition, it has an important place in nursing practices as one of the preferred nursing interventions in the non-pharmacological treatment of pain due to its ease of use, high level of patient satisfaction and rare side effects (Mohamed 2016; Perry et al. 2017).

Although there are studies in the literature in which different non-pharmacological nursing interventions have been applied to manage the shoulder pain experienced by individuals after cholecystectomy, no study has been found in which warm application has been made. Therefore, this study was planned to examine the effect of hot application applied to patients who underwent laparoscopic cholecystectomy on shoulder pain and physiological parameters.

This study was planned to determine the effect of hot application applied to patients undergoing laparoscopic cholecystectomy on shoulder pain and physiological parameters.