Objectives:

A relevant aspect in hospitalized patient is pain intensity measurement. The objectives were firstly the identification of associated variables to pain and secondly if there was any association between the intensity of pain and the modification of the vital signs.

Materials and methods:

The present research was a cross-sectional study was carried out in different areas of acute hospitalization in the University Hospital La Paz. Main variable was intensity of pain measured with numeric verbal scale, and secondary variables were vital signs, body temperature, systolic blood pressure, diastolic blood pressure, mean arterial pressure, heart rate, capillary blood glucose and oxygen saturation from the data obtained in the hospital monitoring instruments. The Student's T test was used for comparison between groups. The effect size was measured by the Cohen d and the association size by the Pearson r.

Results:

A total of 180 patients were included. No statistically significant differences were found for any of the vital signs according to pain intensity levels (p > 0.05) divide in two groups. No statistically significant differences were found between vital signs as a function of pain intensity and the moment to collect measurements (morning/afternoon/evening) (p > 0.05). No statistically significant associations were found between pain intensity and vital signs except a statistically significant weak and negative association was observed between the diastolic blood pressure and the patients pain intensity (r = -0.219; p = 0.032).

Conclusions:

Our results suggest that there are no differences between the vital signs according to the pain intensity and there are not associations between them.

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