A Comparison of Obstetric and Non-obstetric Anesthesia Medical Accidents

Background: Obstetrics departments are unique and medical accidents in obstetric anesthesia may show differences from non-obstetric anesthesia accidents.So we compared both groups in several aspects for the understanding their characters and decreasing their incidence.Methods: Obstetric anesthesia accidents (n = 30) and non-obstetric anesthesia accidents (n = 106) were compared in 6 categories (patient age, anesthesia method, damaging event, anesthetic care, severity of injury, payment).Results: The most common complications in obstetric anesthesia accidents were maternal death (40%), maternal brain damage (13%), and maternal nerve injury (13%).In contrast, the most common complications in non-obstetric anesthesia accidents were patient death (62%), and patient brain damage (27%).The severity of injury score of obstetric anesthesia adverse outcomes was analogous to that of non-obstetric anesthesia adverse outcomes, but the payment for obstetric accidents was significantly greater than that for non-obstetric accidents.Conclusions: Obstetric anesthesia accidents revealed distinct medical risk profiles, such as patient age, damaging event, severity of injury, and payment.Special care should be used when anesthetizing younger women and caring for a newborn in obstetric anesthesia.More studies and analyses are necessary to prevent obstetric anesthesia accidents.(Korean J Anesthesiol 2008; 54: 431∼6)