British journal of anaesthesia
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Br J Anaesth
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Sample size determination is essential for reliable hypothesis testing in clinical trials and should rely on adequate sample size calculations with alpha, beta, variance, and an effect size being the minimal clinically important difference (MCID). This facilitates interpretation of the clinical relevance of statistically significant results. No gold standard for MCIDs exists in postoperative pain research. ⋯ We provide clinician-perceived MCID estimates for rescue opioid consumption and pain scores that can be used for sample size calculations until reliable evidence-based patient-rated MCIDs emerge. Nearly half of the trials with significant findings did not reach the predetermined MCID.