Abstract:

Background: Pain is an inevitable occurrence following surgery and its control is an important component of post-operative care. Many patients still suffer from poor post-operative pain control which is associated with a lot of secondary undesirable consequences.

Methods: We conducted a prospective observational study on 120 patients undergoing abdominal surgery over a 3-year period in a teaching hospital to determine adequacy and pattern of analgesic prescriptions. The patients’ case notes were retrieved from the record unit of the hospital following discharge and relevant data extracted.

Results: The mean age of the patients was 47.36 (±8.933). Twenty-four (20%) were older than 65 years. The most common abdominal surgical procedure performed was appendectomy. Non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs only, opiod only, opiod-NSAID combination and NSAID-NSAID combinations were prescribed for 42.5% ,30.83%, 14.16%) and 7.85% of cases respectively and no prescription in 3.3% of cases. Pentazocine was the most commonly prescribed opiod. Females tend to have more opiod prescriptions than males (OR= 3.4, p=0.0052). Other factors that favoured opiod prescription include; age <65 years (OR=4.8571, p= .0019), patient in high social class (OR= 3.6364, p=0.4182), and Yoruba ethnicity (OR=3.2406, p= 0.0149). Non-steroidal analgesics were the most commonly prescribed analgesic to patients that underwent major abdominal surgeries.

Conclusion: We thus recommend use of analgesic combinations and dose adjustment based on patients’ severity of pain in post-operative abdominal pain control.

Keywords: Pattern, Analgesic prescription, Abdominal surgery and Postoperative pain.

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