Cataract surgery under topical anesthesia: Gender-based study of pain experience

BACKGROUND: Pain perception, expression, tolerance, and the healthcare provider’s evaluation and management of pain are affected by the gender of the patient. To the best of our knowledge, there is lack of gender-based evaluation of pain during cataract surgery under topical anesthesia. AIMS: This study has been initiated to evaluate and determine pain experience during cataract surgery under topical anesthesia and to study the gender-based differences of the same. SETTINGS AND DESIGN: Hospital-based study involving cataract surgery under topical anesthesia using standard cataract surgery. It was an interventional comparative case series. MATERIALS AND METHODS: One hundred and sixty patients were included in four groups, according to the gender and choice of surgery. Patients underwent either phacoemulsification with foldable intra ocular lens (IOL) or manual small incision cataract surgery with rigid IOL under topical anesthesia. Patients ranked their pain experience on VAS scale after the surgery and the surgeon recorded the ease/difficulty accordingly using a questionnaire. STATISTICAL ANALYSIS USED: MedCalc version 10.2.0.0 (www.medcalc.be) for windows was used to analyze the results. Analysis of variance (ANOVA) test and Kruskal-Walis test were used to analyze the data. RESULTS: The overall visual analog scale (VAS) score was 0.8 (SD 1.3 range 0-8), with no statistical difference among the groups (P=0.5). The average surgeon’s score was 3.3 (SD 0.71 range 3-7), with no statistical difference between the groups (P=0.37).There were no sight threatening complications during the surgery in any group. CONCLUSIONS: The outcome of the study demonstrates that the patients undergoing cataract surgery under topical anesthesia perceive comparable pain and discomfort irrespective of their gender.