Primary and secondary outcomes
pain
SECONDARY
The number of patients needing unplanned visits to a physician in the health care center (operating hospital or public and private health care centers) due to pain after the operation during the first three months was the primary outcome for this trial. Different measures of pre- and post-operative pain, i.e., the intensity of pain (measured by the numeric rating scale, NRS, ranging from 0 to 10) and the use of pain medication, were secondary endpoints. Also, quality of life measures (measured by RAND-36 Item Health Survey [