Post-operative pain management in paediatric surgery at Sylvanus Olympio University Teaching Hospital, Togo.

BACKGROUND

The aim of this study was to evaluate pain management in paediatric surgery at Sylvanus Olympio University Teaching Hospital, Lome.

PATIENTS AND METHODS

A prospective descriptive study was conducted in the Department of Anaesthesiology and Intensive Care at Sylvanus Olympio teaching hospital from 1 January to 30 June 2012. Data collected include: demography, type of surgery, American Society of Anaesthesiologists (ASA) classification, anaesthetic protocol, analgesia technique, post-operative complications and cost of analgesia.

RESULTS

The study includes 106 post-operative children. Abdominal surgery was performed in 41.5% and orthopaedic surgery in 31.1%. A total of 75% of patients were classified ASA 1. General anaesthesia (GA) was performed in 88%. Anaesthetists supervised post-operative care in 21.7% cases. Multimodal analgesia was used in every case and 12% of patients received a regional block. The most frequently unwanted effects of analgesics used were nausea and/or vomiting in 12.3%. At H24, child under 7 years have more pain assessment than those from 7 to 15 years (46% vs 24%) and this difference was statistically significant (chi-square = 4.7598; P = 0.0291 < 0.05). The average cost of peri-operative analgesia under loco regional analgesia (LRA) versus GA during the first 48 h post-operative was US $23 versus $46.

CONCLUSION

Our study showed that post-operative pain management in paediatric surgery is often not well controlled and paediatric loco regional analgesia technique is under practiced in sub Saharan Africa.