3.2. Medication
The percentage of patients who consumed analgesic medications decreased over time, from 83% to 71% at 30 and 60 minutes to 39% and 43% at 6 and 12 hours, down to 21% at 24 hours after surgery. Overall, 82% of the patients consumed paracetamol, 62% morphine, 54% dipyrone IV, and 49% tramal. The medications at 30 and 60 minutes after surgery were paracetamol and morphine (31% and 41% of the patients took those medications 30 minutes after surgery and 20% and 25% of the patients used them at 60 minutes after surgery, respectively). Six hours after the surgery, tramal, dipyrone IV, and paracetamol were the medications most administered (used by 13%, 1%, and 11% of the patients, respectively). Twelve hours after surgery, tramal and dipyrone IV were the main administered medications (consumed by 14% and 16% of the patients, respectively). Twenty-four hours after surgery, dipyrone IV was the most dispensed medication (administered to 8% of the patients) (Interestingly, the mean/median number of medications consumed by each of the patients was lower among the patients who received a combination of 2 blocks compared to those who received a single one (mean/median of 2.7/3 and 2.8/3 for the TAP or subcostal TAP blocks, respectively; 2.5/2 and 2.3/2 for the subcostal TAP + TAP or subcostal TAP + rectus sheath blocks, respectively). An independent-samples median test revealed that the difference in the mean/median between subcostal TAP single block treatment and the combined treatment of subcostal TAP + TAP was statistically significant with a P value of 0.025 (In addition, an independent-samples Kolmogorov–Smirnov test demonstrated that when pooling data of the number of medications consumed by each patient from the single block treatments and comparing it to the pooled data of the combined blocks treatments, a statistically significant difference was noted. Moreover, fewer medications per patient were administered to the patients receiving a combination of blocks compared to those who were treated with a single block (mean/median of 2.73/3 in the single treatment vs. 2.4/2 in the combined treatment, Pv = 0.024) (It is important to note that during the 24 hours in which the patients were monitored, no side effects were reported, neither in the single block nor in the combined blocks treated patients.