Postoperative pain remains an undermanaged aspect of perioperative patient care.
Overreliance on opioids places patients at risk for pain and opioid-related adverse events with
delayed recovery and increased hospital length of stay, cost, and patient morbidity and mortality
risk. Anesthesia providers play a crucial role in postoperative pain management and
inconsistencies remain regarding knowledge, awareness, and use of current evidence-based pain
management guideline recommendations.
The project’s purpose was to increase anesthesia providers’ knowledge, awareness, and
compliance with their facility and national organization preemptive analgesic evidence-based
guideline and protocol recommendations. A secondary goal included improved patient
postoperative pain-related outcomes (i.e., decreased narcotic use, initial pain score, and time to
discharge in PACU) in the project’s targeted patient surgical population.
An educational presentation with a one-group presurvey-postsurvey design was used to
assess anesthesia providers’ knowledge and awareness of facility and national organization
preemptive analgesic guideline and protocol recommendations. A retrospective/prospective chart
audit was used to assess provider preemptive analgesic ordering compliance and patient
postoperative pain-related outcome indicators pre- to post-intervention.
Positive provider knowledge and awareness gains were made despite not achieving set
project aims. These knowledge gains led to increased preemptive analgesic ordering compliance
rates from 44% pre-intervention to 73% and 71% one- and two-months post-intervention. Patient
postoperative pain-related outcome indicators minimally changed pre- to post-intervention and
did not achieve set aims and goals, yet these changes led the project manager to infer that when
appropriately prescribed, preemptive analgesics presented minimal pain-related outcome risk to
the project’s target patient population.
Following project intervention, preemptive analgesic prescribing became standard of
practice within the implementing facility. Increased provider compliance with evidence-based
guideline recommendations is possible through providing education and addressing identified
and perceived barriers to recommendation use in practice.

Creator

• Tia M. Zdych

Keyword

• postoperative pain

• enhanced recovery after surgery

• postoperative pain management

• preemptive analgesia

• multimodal analgesic component

• perioperative

• perioperative patient care

• ERAS

Date created

• June 22, 2021

Rights statement

• http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/