[The effects of small dose midazolam in patients to reduce the uncomfortable feeling during epidural block procedure]

The effects of small dose midazolam to reduce the uncomfortable feeling during epidural block procedure were studied. All 160 patients (ASA I approximately II) were premedicated with intramuscular (I.M.) atropine sulfate 0.5 mg and hydroxyzine 50 mg. To relieve pain and anxiety during epidural block procedure, small dose midazolam (1 mg; 80 patients) was given intravenously in the operating room before epidural procedure. After epidural block, patients were anesthetized with nitrous oxide-oxygen-isoflurane or nitrous oxide-oxygen-sevoflurane. The following day, patient's self-assessments of pain during epidural block procedure were categorized as good and fair. Midazolam 1 mg was effective in the males (from 45% to 10%) and tended to allay patients' pain feeling in the females (from 40% to 23%). To investigate the uncomfortable feeling 1 further asked the patients whether epidural block procedure was more noxious than I.M. premedication or not. Noxious feeling was expressed in more I.M. premedicated patients (78%) than in epidural block procedure patients (48%). These results suggest that small dose midazolam is effective to relieve patients' uncomfortable feeling due to its sedative and antianxiety effects.