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

August 26, 2026 updated by: Fabricio Tavares Mendonca, Hospital de Base

After surgery, doctors need to know how patients are doing, especially in the first hours after they leave the recovery room. This can be hard to track once patients go to a regular hospital room, and some symptoms - like pain or nausea - may go unnoticed.

This study tests whether an online form, sent to patients' phones, can help doctors check on pain and recovery in the first 12 and 24 hours after surgery. Patients (or a family member helping them) will receive a link by WhatsApp and answer a short set of questions about their pain, nausea, medications, and how they are recovering.

The main goal is to find out whether patients are willing and able to use this online form, and whether it is a helpful and practical way to follow up with them after surgery.

Study Overview

Status

Not yet recruiting

Conditions

Intervention / Treatment

Detailed Description

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.

Study Type

Observational

Enrollment (Estimated)

213

Contacts and Locations

This section provides the contact details for those conducting the study, and information on where this study is being conducted.

Study Contact

Study Locations

  • Brazil
    • Federal District
      • Brasília, Federal District, Brazil, 70.335-902
        • Hospital de Base do Distrito Federal (Instituto de Gestão Estratégica de Saúde do Distrito Federal - IGESDF)
        • Contact:

Participation Criteria

Researchers look for people who fit a certain description, called eligibility criteria. Some examples of these criteria are a person's general health condition or prior treatments.

Eligibility Criteria

Ages Eligible for Study

  • Adult
  • Older Adult

Accepts Healthy Volunteers

No

Sampling Method

Non-Probability Sample

Study Population

Adult patients undergoing elective surgery not intended for postoperative intensive care unit (ICU) admission, consecutively enrolled at a single tertiary public hospital in the Federal District, Brazil. Patients are approached during the pre-anesthetic evaluation and, if eligible and willing to participate, are followed remotely via a digital form during the first 24 hours after discharge from the post-anesthesia care unit (PACU).

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

  • Age ≥ 18 years
  • Undergoing elective surgery with anticipated discharge from the post-anesthesia care unit (PACU) to the ward
  • Access to a smartphone with internet connection (personally, or through an accompanying caregiver)
  • Cognitive capacity to respond to the digital form, or availability of a caregiver to respond on the patient's behalf
  • Signed Informed Consent Form

Exclusion Criteria:

  • Anticipated postoperative admission to the intensive care unit (ICU)
  • Inability to communicate, with no caregiver available to assist
  • Refusal to participate or to use the digital tool
  • No access to a mobile device/internet during the first 24 postoperative hours, with no logistical alternative available
  • Clinical condition that, at the discretion of the assisting team, contraindicates participation

Study Plan

This section provides details of the study plan, including how the study is designed and what the study is measuring.

How is the study designed?

Design Details

Cohorts and Interventions

Group / Cohort
Intervention / Treatment
Postoperative Patients (Digital Form Cohort)
Adult patients (≥18 years) undergoing elective, non-ICU-bound surgery at a tertiary public hospital, who completed a digital web-based form to report pain, nausea/vomiting, medication use, functional recovery, and satisfaction at 12 and 24 hours after PACU discharge.
Other: Digital web-based postoperative follow-up form
A responsive, 18-item online questionnaire, accessed via a WhatsApp link, used to remotely collect patient-reported data on pain, nausea/vomiting, medication use, functional recovery, and satisfaction at 12 and 24 hours after PACU discharge. This is a data-collection tool and does not constitute a clinical/therapeutic intervention.

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure
Measure Description
Time Frame
Adherence Rate to the Digital Follow-up Form
Time Frame: At 12 hours and at 24 hours after PACU discharge
Proportion of enrolled patients who fully completed the digital questionnaire, calculated separately at 12 and 24 hours after discharge from the post-anesthesia care unit (PACU).
At 12 hours and at 24 hours after PACU discharge

Collaborators and Investigators

This is where you will find people and organizations involved with this study.

Sponsor

Hospital de Base

Publications and helpful links

The person responsible for entering information about the study voluntarily provides these publications. These may be about anything related to the study.

General Publications

Study record dates

These dates track the progress of study record and summary results submissions to ClinicalTrials.gov. Study records and reported results are reviewed by the National Library of Medicine (NLM) to make sure they meet specific quality control standards before being posted on the public website.

Study Major Dates

Study Start (Estimated)

October 1, 2026

Primary Completion (Estimated)

September 30, 2027

Study Completion (Estimated)

September 30, 2027

Study Registration Dates

First Submitted

August 26, 2026

First Submitted That Met QC Criteria

August 26, 2026

First Posted (Actual)

August 31, 2026

Study Record Updates

Last Update Posted (Actual)

August 31, 2026

Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria

August 26, 2026

Last Verified

August 1, 2026

More Information

Terms related to this study

Keywords

Additional Relevant MeSH Terms

Other Study ID Numbers

  • CAAE 97978426.1.0000.8153

Plan for Individual participant data (IPD)

Plan to Share Individual Participant Data (IPD)?

UNDECIDED

IPD Plan Description

A decision regarding individual participant data sharing has not yet been made. Data are currently stored on a secure digital platform with restricted access limited to the research team, in accordance with the approved research protocol. Any future data-sharing plan will comply with applicable Brazilian data protection and research ethics regulations (Law No. 14,874/2024; CNS Resolution No. 466/2012) and will be submitted for review by the Research Ethics Committee (CEP/IGESDF) before implementation.

Drug and device information, study documents

Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated drug product

No

Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated device product

No

This information was retrieved directly from the website clinicaltrials.gov without any changes. If you have any requests to change, remove or update your study details, please contact register@clinicaltrials.gov. As soon as a change is implemented on clinicaltrials.gov, this will be updated automatically on our website as well.

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