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Updated: Nov 16, 2025

An Experimental Paradigm for the Prediction of Post-Operative Pain PPOP
Published on: January 27, 2010
Incidence and Risk Factors of Postoperative Severe Discomfort After Elective Surgery Under General Anesthesia: A
Ya-Ling Fan1, Jia-Lei Qian2, Er-Li Ma2
1Department of Anesthesiology, West China Hospital, Sichuan University & The Research Units of West China (2018RU012), Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences, Chengdu, Sichuan, People's Republic of China; Department of Anesthesiology, People's Hospital of Leshan, Leshan, Sichuan, People's Republic of China.
Purpose:
Patient comfort is an important concern in patients receiving surgery, but the seriousness of discomfort during recovery is unknown. We investigated the incidence of postoperative discomfort based on the Standardized Endpoints in Perioperative Medicine initiative for patient comfort, and identified the risk factors.
Design:
This was a single-center prospective observational study.
Methods:
We enrolled adult patients who underwent elective surgery under general anesthesia between July and December 2018 at West China Hospital of Sichuan University (ChiCTR1800017324). The primary outcome was the incidence of postoperative severe discomfort (PoSD), defined as occurring when a patient experienced a severe rating in two or more domains in the six domains in the Standardized Endpoints in Perioperative Medicine initiative on the same day, including rest pain, postoperative nausea, and vomiting, dissatisfaction of gastrointestinal recovery, dissatisfaction of mobilization, sleep disturbance, and recovery. A generalized estimated equation was constructed to find risk factors of PoSD.
Findings:
In total, 440 patients completed the study. The incidence of PoSD was 28% on postoperative day (POD) 1, 13% on POD 2, 9% on POD 3, and 3.6% on both POD 5 and 7. The most common discomfort was serious sleep disturbance, ranging from 43% to 10% in the first week after surgery. Longer operative time (odds ratio [95% confidence interval]: 1.56 [1.19 to 2.05], P = .001), gastrointestinal surgery (5.03[2.08,12.17], P < .001), orthopaedic surgery (3.03 [1.35,6.79], P = .007), ear, nose, and throat (ENT) surgery (3.50 [1.22,10.02], P = .020) and postoperative complications (1.77 [1.03-3.04], P = .038) were significant risk factors of PoSD.
Conclusions:
The incidence of PoSD after elective surgery under general anesthesia is high. Sleep disturbance was the most common problem identified. Anesthesia providers and perianesthesia nurses may need to optimize anesthetic application, combine different anesthesia methods, improve perioperative management, and provide interventions to reduce and to treat discomfort after surgeries.
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