An audit of postoperative minor complications of anesthesia

To look at minor complications attributable to anesthesia in adult surgical patients at our Institution and to identify various contributing factors.

Descriptive cross sectional audit.

Aga Khan University Hospital, Karachi, Pakistan.

Seven hundred and thirty surgical patients undergoing elective surgery were recruited.

This was a non-interventional study and data was collected prospectively based on predefined criteria.

The incidence of nausea, vomiting, sore throat, headache, drowsiness, phlebitis, dizziness, myalgia, transient nerve palsy, conjunctivitis, ringing of ears, low backache, lip injury, dental injury or any other minor complications were looked at.

Nausea, sore throat and vomiting were the highest reported complications. The incidence of nausea, drowsiness and dizziness was less in patients more than sixty years of age. Incidence of nausea and vomiting was higher in ASA 1 patients and in surgery lasting less than ninety minutes. Headache and dizziness were reported high in certain surgical specialties.

The overall rate of minor complications following anesthesia was 12.6%. No complications were reported by 30% of the study population. The data has given us a benchmark for patient information and will be used for risk reduction in our Department of Anaesthesiology.