We study the properties of an intense pulse propagating in dissipative nonlinear systems considering nonlinear dispersion within the framework of the variational approach. We model the system by the so-called saturable cubic-quintic nonlinear Schrödinger equation including perturbing terms like two-photon absorption, intra-pulse Raman scattering, and dissipative losses. Introducing Rayleigh’s dissipative function we derive a set of coupled differential equations for the various parameters of the pulse. It is clearly demonstrated how the interplay among dispersion, saturable nonlinearity, and dissipative losses affects intense-short pulse propagation in optical media.