JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

Background:

The most frequent complications observed after ambulatory management is acute postoperative pain.

Objective:

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the incidence of the late postoperative pain 7 days after day surgery.

Methods:

We retrospectively included patients who underwent day surgery, under general/regional or local anesthesia, in the university hospital of Rouen from January 2018 to February 2020. Data collected were moderate to severe pain defined as numeral rating scale (NRS) > 3/10 1 day (secondary endpoint) and 7 days (primary endpoint) after surgery. These data could be collected using a semi-intelligent SMS platform sent to the patient at home as part of the follow-up after ambulatory surgery.

Results:

We analysed 6099 patients. The day after surgery (D1), 5.2% (n = 318) of patients presented moderate to severe pain, 5.9% (n = 248) in the general or regional anesthesia group and 3.7% (n = 70) in the local anesthesia group. Seven days after surgery, 18.6% of patients (n = 1135) presented moderate to severe pain, including 21.3% (n = 892) of patients in the "general or regional anesthesia" group and 12.3% (n = 243) in the "local anesthesia" group. The rate of emergency consultation or rehospitalization was 11.1%. Late postoperative pain increases the risk of emergency consultation or rehospitalization (OR 2.54 95% CI 1.98-3.32).

Conclusions:

This work shows that postoperative pain 7 days after ambulatory surgery remains present in more than 18% of cases, which is associated with an increase in the emergency consultation or rehospitalization rate. Clinical Trial: According to the French law, ethical approval for this study (Ethics Committee No. 2058568) was provided by the Non-Interventional Research Committee based at Rouen University Hospital, Rouen, France (Chairperson Professor LM Joly, Approval Number E2017-37).