A Comparative Evaluation of Perioperative Analgesic Use in Orthopaedic and General Surgery Departments
Perioperative Analgesic Use in Orthopaedic and General Surgery Departments
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.54393/pbmj.v9i10.1410Keywords:
Perioperative Analgesia, Orthopaedic Surgery, General Surgery, Opioids, Multimodal Analgesia, Postoperative PainAbstract
The need for perioperative analgesia varies based on surgical specialty, and medication-related risks arise when inappropriate opioids are used. Objective: To compare perioperative analgesic utilization and postoperative pain between orthopaedic and general surgery patients. Methods: This prospective comparative observational study included 266 patients, with 133 each from Orthopaedic and General Surgery departments at Medical Teaching Institution, Mardan Medical Complex (MTI-MMC). Demographic, surgical, analgesic, dose, opioid exposure, and postoperative Numerical Rating Scale (NRS) pain data were collected from medical records. Independent-samples t-test, Mann–Whitney U test, and Chi-square/Fisher’s exact test were used to compare groups. Results: Opioid use was significantly higher in orthopaedics than in general surgery patients (p=0.037), as were opioid exposure (p=0.018) and the number of analgesic classes (p=0.031). Orthopaedic patients had higher NRS pain scores at 2, 6, and 12 hours (p=0.009, 0.014, and 0.025, respectively), while the 24-hour difference was non-significant (p=0.052). Rescue opioid use was also higher in orthopaedics (p=0.048), whereas overall rescue analgesia was not significant (p=0.062). Conclusions: It was concluded that orthopaedic patients had greater perioperative opioid utilization, opioid exposure, postoperative pain scores, and rescue opioid requirements than general surgery patients. These findings highlight differences in analgesic requirements between surgical specialties and support the need for procedure-specific multimodal analgesic strategies with appropriate opioid-sparing approaches to achieve effective pain control while minimizing unnecessary opioid exposure.
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Copyright © 2026. The Authors. Published by CrossLinks International Publishers LLC, USA. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0), Copyright of each article remains with its authors, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. For comments editor@pakistanbmj.com
