Analgesic Prescriptions Patern Following Abdominal Surgery in A University Teaching Hospital

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.