Anaesthesiologist’s Attitude and Behavior Toward Postoperative Pain Management in Turkey

OBJECTIVE: : This study aims to evaluate the approach of anaesthesiologist in Turkey and their applications toward postoperative pain treatment and in addition to raise awareness in this regard. METHODS: The target audience of this descriptive survey study was physician members of the Turkish Society of Anaesthesiology and Reanimation, who were volunteering/accepting to participate in the study. The doctors were contacted via their e-mail addresses. Data were collected online, between October 10, 2016, and November 30, 2016, using a web-based (SurveyMonkey®, https://tr.surveymonkey.com/) questionnaire form, and the data were analyzed by the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) version 20 software (IBM Corp.; Armonk, NY, USA). Descriptive data were presented with frequency, percentage, mean, standard deviation, median, minimum, and maximum values. RESULTS: A total of 315 people were included in the study. Around 34.9% anaesthesiologists had 5-10 years of professional experience and 61.9% of the anaesthesiologists stated that they routinely check the patients’ pain level in the postoperative period. Multimodal analgesia is mostly preferred (25.3%) after major surgical intervention. Around 71.9% of the participants stated that they cannot find the required time for postoperative analgesia in their institution, and they associated this matter with excessive workload and lack of staff time. CONCLUSION: In this study, we found that anaesthesiologists in Turkey are doing the follow-up of patients during the postoperative period pain-wise and that they use specific pain scales. Anaesthesiologists think that postoperative pain treatment is not done effectively and time required for the pain treatment is not enough. They also stated that a separate team should be formed for postoperative pain management in the hospital. We believe that this study will raise awareness on this issue and will contribute to the creation of algorithms for postoperative pain treatment, the establishment of pain teams, and the provision of more effective and safer health services.