• Philipp Baumbach, Johannes Dreiling, Christin Arnold, Claudia Weinmann, Marcus Komann, Klaus Bäcker, Axel Neumann, Jörg Karst, and Winfried Meißner.
• Jena University Hospital, Department of Anesthesiology and Intensive Care Medicine, Friedrich Schiller University Jena, Jena, Germany; Medicaltex GmbH, Munich, Germany; German Federal Association of Outpatient Surgery (BAO), Berlin, Germany; Professional Association of German Anesthesiologists, Division for Outpatient Anesthesia and Anesthesia by SHI-Accredited Physicians, Berlin, Germany.
• Dtsch Arztebl Int. 2024 Feb 9; 121 (3): 717871-78.

BackgroundApproximately 8.1 million outpatient surgical procedures were performed in Germany in 2021. Little is known about the quality of postoperative pain treatment in the outpatient sector.MethodsThe AQS1 project comprises a combined survey of patients and staff in the framework of quality control for ambulatory surgery. The primary endpoint of this study was the prevalence of relevant incisional pain (≥ 4/10 on the numerical rating scale) up to postoperative day 3. Secondary endpoints included prognostic variables for pain and pain-associated outcomes, based on the AQS1 patient questionnaire. Moreover, mixed regression models were used to analyze potential prognostic variables and associations of pain with other outcomes (study registration number DRKS00028052).ResultsData from 330 008 patients were evaluated (from 1 July 2001 to 31 December 2021). The overall prevalence of relevant incisional pain up to postoperative day 3 was 22.5%, with major differences between different types of procedure (3.2%-51.2%). Pain was most common after hemorrhoid surgery (51.2%) and the laparoscopic lysis of large and small bowel adhesions (45.4%). The main associations of relevant pain were with younger age (odds ratio [OR] 1.87, 95% confidence interval [1.82; 1.91]), early postoperative pain (1.34, [1.30; 1.39]), inadequate provision of analgesics (2.90, [2.71; 3.09]), and surgical wound infections (2.60, [2.43; 2.78]). Patients with pain reported lower overall satisfaction with the procedure and a longer inability to work.ConclusionThese data have not been tested for representativeness. They can serve as a point of departure for the optimization of individualized perioperative pain therapy and for the planning of prospective studies.

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