Remote Assessment of Pain and Recovery Quality After Surgery Using a Digital Form: A Pilot Study

Postoperative recovery is a dynamic process requiring continuous monitoring. After discharge from the post-anesthesia care unit (PACU), patients are typically assessed only through periodic in-person visits by the ward staff, which can create gaps in surveillance and lead to underreporting of pain, nausea, and other symptoms during the immediate postoperative period. Digital tools have been proposed as a way to narrow this gap by allowing patients to report symptoms directly and continuously, potentially enabling earlier identification of complications and more timely clinical response.

Despite promising results from international studies on postoperative digital monitoring, reviews have identified important gaps, including methodological heterogeneity, a lack of standardized and validated instruments, and limited integration with clinical teams. There is a particular scarcity of studies evaluating simple, accessible digital tools for the immediate postoperative period in Brazilian public hospitals.

This pilot study was designed to address that gap by testing a simplified, purpose-built digital form for remote postoperative follow-up. During the pre-anesthetic evaluation, patients (or an accompanying caregiver, when needed) are given a link, sent via WhatsApp, to a web-responsive online questionnaire designed for ease of use among postoperative patients. The form includes 18 questions covering pain at rest and during movement, nausea and vomiting, use of rescue analgesics and antiemetics, need for anesthesiology team intervention, functional recovery (ability to urinate and defecate), and overall satisfaction with the recovery process and with the questionnaire itself. Patients are asked to complete the form at two time points: 12 and 24 hours after PACU discharge.

The study's central hypothesis is that a simplified digital form is a feasible and well-accepted tool for remote postoperative monitoring, and that it can capture clinically meaningful data on pain, adverse effects, and perceived recovery. Findings from this pilot are intended to inform the future development of digital follow-up protocols - including potential integration with electronic medical records - for postoperative care in Brazilian public hospital settings, and to identify barriers to more equitable implementation of remote monitoring tools.