Document Type

Article

Department

Anaesthesia

Abstract

Day care surgery has shown a remarkable development over the last two decades, comprising approximately 60-70% of all surgical procedures. Therefore major proportions of surgical patients are recovering at home and have little or no assessment of the adequacy of their pain relief. The aim of our audit was to compare suggested postoperative pain indicators with targets for best practice. This audit was done at the Aga Khan University Hospital day care unit for a period of three months. On the day of surgery patients having the contact numbers were informed about the telephone call 24 hrs after the surgery inquiring about their pain relief. Patients were shown and explained the visual analogue score from 0 to 10. The data was collected by one of the investigators on the day of surgery. We could assess 63.3% of day care patients. All patients were discharged with analgesia. Only three percent reported severe pain after 24 hrs which is according to the proposed standard for best practice that is < 5 %. Sixty percent of patients had mild or no pain which is less than the proposed standard (>85%) and 84.2% were satisfied which is almost borderline (>85%) according to the standard of best practice.

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