title: Reducing pain of first trimester abortion under local anaesthesia.
abstract: The study aimed to estimate the pain related to first trimester abortion under local and general anaesthesia. One hundred and eighty-one women undergoing abortion of first trimester under local anaesthesia and 198 under general anaesthesia were interviewed 1 h after the end of the procedure. About 50% of all women described their experience as less painful than expected. Over 50% of the women described the pain during the procedure as mild or moderate according to the verbal rating scale. The step-up logistic regression analyses identified four important variables: time interval less than 2 min from local anaesthesia injection to the beginning of the procedure (RR = 3), lack of choice between local and general anaesthesia (RR = 1.9), history of frequent use of analgesics (RR = 1.9) and nulliparity (RR = 1.7). These data indicate that skillfully performed abortion with local anaesthesia is a procedure tolerated by most women. Moreover, because it carries lower risk of complications and costs less, its use should be encouraged.
authors.affiliation: Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Istituto Superíore di Sanità, Rome, Italy.
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Donati
authors.forename: E
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Medda
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Proietti
authors.forename: L
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Rizzo
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Spinelli
authors.forename: D
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Subrizi
authors.forename: M E
authors.initials: ME
authors.lastname: Grandolfo
mesh_terms: D000028:Abortion, Induced; D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000698:Analgesia; D000772:Anesthesia, Local; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D016015:Logistic Models; D010146:Pain; D011247:Pregnancy; D011261:Pregnancy Trimester, First