Background: Post-operative nausea and vomiting is a common occurrence amongst surgical patients. Anecdotal reports suggest antiemetic prescribing patterns to be an area for improvement. Aim:To report the most commonly prescribed antiemetic agents in a major tertiary teaching hospital in Australia; and to assess medication dosage and compared to the current national and international guidelines with recommended multimodal therapies.Methods: A retrospective analysis from patients' electronic medical fi les of patients admitted under a surgical unit that underwent operative management during a four week period was conducted.Results: A total of 480 presentations were audited during the 4-week period. Of these, 26 patients had readmissions, resulting in 454 patients screened for inclusion in this audit. A total of 51 patients met the exclusion criteria, leaving 403 patients included in this audit. Ondansetron was the most commonly prescribed antiemetic agent (65.5%), followed by metoclopramide (21.5%) and droperidol (7.4%). A single antiemetic agent was prescribed for 57.3% of patients, compared to 39.2% for multimodal therapies and 3.5% of patients did not have any antiemetic agents charted. Conclusion:The majority of post-operative patients were prescribed ondansetron. The prescription of ondansetron as fi rst line therapy is in line with international guidelines. An area for improvement was highlighted in the prescribing of multimodal therapy for the reduction of post-operative nausea and vomiting. Further studies and providing educational support to address discrepancies in current prescribing practices is recommended to optimise patient health outcomes.
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