The Effect of Mindfulness Training on Postoperative Pain - A Solomon Four Group Design

Cognitive behavioral therapy and mindfulness-based therapies are successful practices in reducing anxiety and psychological distress (Ghielen et al. 2019). Mindfulness training includes teaching a range of meditation techniques as well as how to focus on the present moment in daily activities (Monshat, K., \& Castle, D. J., 2012). Mindfulness training given to patients undergoing hip replacement surgery has been shown to reduce postoperative pain and improve their physical functioning (Dowsey et al., 2019). Similarly, it has been reported that mindfulness training given to patients who will undergo knee and hip replacement before surgery can prevent postoperative pain and opioid use (Hanley et al., 2021). In a study, mindfulness training used in the management of pain after lumbar disc herniation surgery was found to be useful in managing postoperative pain (Juneyoung et al., 2019). Aromatherapy with lavender oil was found to be effective in reducing pain after inguinal hernia surgery (Bagheri et al., 2020). This suggests that in addition to pharmacological pain management, non-pharmacological methods are also effective in pain management and can be used. In a meta-analysis evaluating the effectiveness of mindfulness-based interventions in acute pain, it was found that there was a lack of good quality evidence for the effectiveness of mindfulness-based interventions in reducing pain severity in clinical or experimental settings (Shires et al., 2020). It is stated that more rigorous large-scale studies conducted with pain populations are needed before cognitive behavioral therapies can be definitively recommended as first-line treatment for acute or chronic pain (McClintock et al., 2021). Therefore, our study was planned to determine the effect of preoperative awareness training on postoperative pain in patients undergoing inguinal hernia repair surgery.