Undesirable Perioperative Anesthesia Outcomes at Two National Referral Hospitals, a cross sectional study in Eritrea

Abstract

Background: Perioperative undesirable anesthesia outcomes are common among patients undergoing surgery. The aim of this study was to assess the prevalence of undesirable anaesthesia outcomes during the perioperative period. Method: This cross sectional study was conducted on 470 patient who underwent different types of surgeries at two National Referral Hospitals with in a three month period. Patients were interviewed 24 hours after operation using the dimension “Discomfort and needs” of the Leiden preoperative care patient satisfaction questionnaire (LPPSq). Descriptive analysis was done using SPSS (version 22) to compute the percentage of occurrence of these undesirable outcomes. Odds ratio was computed using logistic regression to look for the association of the outcomes with the type of surgery and type of anesthesia. Statistical significance level was set at p<0.05. Results: The prevalence of these outcomes was computed in two sequences; prevalence A and prevalence B. Of all the outcomes, post-operative pain was found to be the most prevalent outcome scoring 82.6% and 43.6% consecutively in both prevalence with a median score of 1. The rest of the post-operative side effects were less frequently reported with a median score of 0. In those who did general surgery, sore throat was observed 5.49 times more among those who took general anesthesia (p <0.001). The occurrence of nausea and vomiting was also higher among the same patients in which nausea occurred 1.74 times more (p<0.05) and vomiting 2.03 more (p<0.05). While back pain occurred 51% less among these patients (p <0.05). In those patients who had orthopedic surgeries significant differences was observed only in the occurrences of sore throat in which it was experienced 5.37 times more (p<0.01) by those patients who took general anaesthesia. While in those patients who did gyn/obs surgery, the occurrence of back pain was significant in which was 67% higher among those who took general anaesthesia Conclusion: The experience of undesirable anesthesia outcomes is generally low except for postoperative pain. More emphasis is needed on the management of postoperative pain. Keywords: Leiden preoperative care patient satisfaction questionnaire (LPPSq), Perioperative care, Surgery, Undesirable anesthesia outcomes.