title: A two-year experience of an acute pain service in Singapore.
abstract: The first anaesthesia-based acute pain service in Singapore is described. The benefits, risks and resource implications of such a service during its first two years are reviewed. One thousand two hundred and sixty-eight (1,268) post-operative patients were treated with either patient-controlled analgesia (310 patients) or epidural opioid analgesia (958 patients). Retrospective analysis of the data revealed good patient satisfaction with a low incidence of potentially life threatening side-effects: more than 79% of patients reported satisfaction with pain control while only 0.2% of patients receiving epidural opioid analgesia experienced clinically significant respiratory depression. There were no reports of respiratory depression in the patient-controlled analgesia group. The authors conclude that the provision of an acute pain service in the local context was safe and resulted in excellent post-operative patient satisfaction.
authors.affiliation: Department of Anaesthesia & Surgical Intensive Care, Singapore General Hospital, Singapore.
authors.forename: L T
authors.initials: LT
authors.lastname: Wong
authors.forename: L H
authors.initials: LH
authors.lastname: Koh
authors.forename: K
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Kaur
authors.forename: S K
authors.initials: SK
authors.lastname: Boey
mesh_terms: D000208:Acute Disease; D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D015360:Analgesia, Epidural / Q000592:standards*; D016058:Analgesia, Patient-Controlled / Q000592:standards*; D000761:Anesthesia Department, Hospital / Q000458:organization & administration*; D002648:Child; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D010146:Pain / Q000188:drug therapy*; D017060:Patient Satisfaction; D015397:Program Evaluation; D012017:Referral and Consultation; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D012846:Singapore