Pain evaluation, postoperative analgesia and quality evaluations
fentanyl).Prepositioning, NRS, pain
The Numeric Rating Scale (NRS) was utilized to assess pain intensity. NRS, a unidimensional measurement of adult pain severity, is a segmented numeric version of the visual analog scale (VAS) in which a respondent selects a whole number (ranging from 0 to 10) that best depicts the degree of his/her pain. The 11-point numeric scale spans from ‘0’ for one pain extreme (e.g., “no pain”) to ‘10’ for the opposite pain extreme (e.g. “pain as bad as you can imagine” or “worst pain imaginable”).Time frames were defined as follows:
Preoperatif NRS: NRS at rest before intervention (PENG or iv fentanyl).Prepositioning NRS: NRS score at rest immediately before positioning.Positioning NRS: NRS at positioning, 5 m after intervention in control group or 20 m after intervention in PENG group.Post-positioning NRS: NRS at rest following spinal anesthesia in the supine position.NRS was also measured, at rest, at the 3rd, 6th, 12th, 18th and 24th hours after the end of surgery.All patients received 1 g of iv paracetamol immediately following the end of surgery in the recovery room and every 6 h thereafter in the first 24 h, postoperatively. The patient-controlled analgesia (PCA) device was commenced intravenously in all patients in the recovery room. Patients were instructed to self-administer pain relief by pressing the PCA device when NRS ≥ 4/10. The PCA consisted of 0.5 mg/mL of morphine that was delivered without a basal infusion, followed by boluses of 1 mg each and a 20-minute lockout after each administration. Patient follow-up lasted for 24 h, PCA device was removed after 24 h.