Pain
Conditions
Keywords
post-operative pain
Brief summary
Patients undergoing approximately 10 common outpatient general surgical operations will be given a narcotic prescription for a specified number of pills. Inpatients who are about to be discharged after surgery or trauma will be given narcotic prescriptions for a specified number of pills. Patients will be given a patient report form which they will use to record the number of pills they take each day and their daily pain score on a scale of 0-10.
Interventions
None listed
Sponsors
Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center
Study design
Observational model
COHORT
Time perspective
PROSPECTIVE
Eligibility
Sex/Gender
ALL
Age
18 Years to No maximum
Healthy volunteers
No
Inclusion criteria
* \>= 18 years of age * undergoing one of 9 elective outpatient operations: partial mastectomy, partial mastectomy and sentinel node biopsy, melanoma wide excision and sentinel node excision, thyroidectomy, parathyroidectomy, open inguinal hernia repair, laparoscopic inguinal hernia repair, laparoscopic cholecystectomy OR * an inpatient on the general surgery service who took at least one oral narcotic
Exclusion criteria
* allergic to all narcotics * chronic opioid use * history of opioid or benzodiazepine abuse
Design outcomes
Primary
| Measure | Time frame |
|---|---|
| number of pills to satisfy 80% of patients opioid needs | 1 yr |
Secondary
| Measure | Time frame |
|---|---|
| proportion of patients requiring narcotic refills when specified number of pills is given | 1 year |
| patient pain level, daily | 1 year |
Outcome results
None listed