Postoperative Pain and Urinary Retention After Vaginal Reconstructive Surgery

Objective The objective of this study was to evaluate the effect of patients' immediate prevoiding pain level after vaginal pelvic reconstructive surgery on their ability to void. Methods We conducted a retrospective cohort study of women with and without urinary retention after urogynecologic procedures. Postoperative pain, measured by a visual analog scale, was recorded for each patient before a voiding trial. Demographic, surgical characteristics, prevoiding trial pain, and rate of postoperative urinary retention were compared. Multiple-logistic regression analysis was used with all analyses controlled for univariate variables with a P value of <= 0.1 to estimate adjusted odds ratios (aORs) with 95% confidence intervals (CIs). Two-tailed tests were used, with P < 0.05. Results A total of 458 patients were identified, of which 21% (97/458) failed their voiding trial. In our study, 62% (284/458) of women had a voiding trial on postoperative day 1, and 38% (174/458) underwent a same-day voiding trial. No differences were noted between groups comparing race, ethnicity, hysterectomy, urinary sling, estimated surgical blood loss, utilization of intraoperative or postoperative narcotics, or the proportion of same-day voiding trials. Women with postoperative urinary retention had higher mean prevoiding pain when compared with women without urinary retention (pain visual analog scale, 25 mm vs 12 mm [P < 0.001], respectively). After multiple-logistic regression analysis, a significant association between postoperative urinary retention persisted for prevoiding trial pain score (aOR, 1.02; 95% CI, 1.01-1.03), age (aOR, 1.05; 95% CI, 1.02-1.02), and anterior colporrhaphy (aOR, 2.13; 95% CI, 1.18-3.8). Conclusions Prevoiding pain after pelvic surgery is significantly associated with increased rates of postoperative urinary retention.