Perception and Attitudes of Medical Students Regarding Postoperative Pain Management

BackgroundPostoperative pain remains a challenging problem, which requires a dynamic approach using a variety of treatment modalities to obtain an optimal outcome with respect to enhancing patient comfort and facilitating the recovery process. Multimodal analgesia signifies an increasingly popular approach to prevent postoperative pain. The approach includes administering a combination of opioid and nonopioid analgesics that act at different sites within the central and peripheral nervous systems in an effort to improve pain control while eliminating opioid-related adverse effects. Materials and MethodsTo understand the perception and attitude of 4th year medical students, a structured questionnaire survey was done among six different medical colleges including government (Armed Forces Medical College, Cumilla Medical College and Colonel Malek Medical College, Manikganj) and non-government medical colleges (Army Medical College Bogura, Brahmanbaria Medical College and Chattogram International Medical College) of Bangladesh in October 2019. Total 340 students participated in the study. ResultAmong the 340 students, almost 336 (98.2%) students were agreed that postoperative pain management is an essential element of patient care. Only 4 (1.18%) respondents disagreed. On the other hand, regarding its influence on early recovery and reduction of hospital staying, 311 (91.47%) respondents agreed and 29 (8.53%) respondents were found as disagreed. Regarding the issue of opioid commonly induced respiratory depression, 257 (75.59%) respondents thought it is a common adverse event and 81 (23.82%) respondents disagreed. 206 (60.59%) respondents didnt agree that opioid always produce addiction or tolerance and 134 (39.71%) respondents disagreed with the same issue. 294 (86) respondents agreed that multimodal analgesia increases patients cost and 46 (14%) disagreed. 249 (74%) students agreed that regional techniques are useful for postoperative pain management and 89 (26%) respondents disagreed. ConclusionAdequate post-operative pain management knowledge is necessary to reduce post-operative complications.