Comparison of the Incidence of Inadequate Epidural Analgesia Between Protocol Based and Current Practice

Comparison of the Incidence of Inadequate Epidural Analgesia Between Protocol Based and Current Practice

Epidural analgesia is the recommended analgesic technique in patients having surgery with severe postoperative pain such as thoracic and upper abdominal surgery. However, from the previous study, the incidence of inadequate pain control in patients receiving epidural analgesia is very high 48.6% in our hospital.

A high incidence of inadequate epidural analgesia may result from variety of epidural techniques and epidural drug administrations. The protocol based practice has been developed from acute pain service which founded for more than 10 years. By using protocol based practice, the investigators believed that the incidence of inadequate epidural analgesia will be less compared with the current practice.

Inclusion Criteria:

• All patients age ≥ 18 years old undergo surgery with epidural catheter insertion at Siriraj hospital.

Exclusion Criteria:

• Coagulopathy
• Allergy to study drugs: local anesthetics and opioids
• History of chronic pain