Post-operative pain and patient satisfaction after multimodal analgesia: Questionnaire-based chart review

Post-operative pain remains inadequately controlled in many tertiary hospitals despite widespread adoption of multimodal analgesia protocols and real-world adherence often differs from guideline recommendations. Therefore, it is of interest to evaluate post-operative pain intensity, multimodal analgesic use and patient satisfaction among 220 adults undergoing elective surgery. Mean VAS scores peaked at 6 hours (6.3 ± 1.4) and declined significantly by 24 hours (3.1 ± 0.9) and 48 hours (1.7 ± 0.6), with triple-drug combinations producing superior pain reduction compared to dual or single-agent regimens (p < 0.05). Higher satisfaction was strongly correlated with lower pain scores (r = -0.67, p < 0.001) and delayed analgesic administration was significantly associated with breakthrough pain episodes. Thus, we show that protocol adherence and timely multimodal administration, rather than regimen presence alone, determine post-operative comfort and functional recovery.