“Pain Management in Intensive Care Patients, a Retrospective Observational Research.”
Abstract Background Sepsis and septic shock are the most common causes of death in non-cardiac surgery intensive care units. The treatment of sepsis is difficult. Adequate analgesia is essential for a positive outcome. There are differences in pain management between septic and non-septic patients. Septic ICU patients receive higher doses of opioids than non-septic ICU patients. Methods A retrospective observational study was carried out in an anesthesiological intensive care from 1.1.2014 to 30.6.2016. The cases were divided into four different groups according to the criteria: Sepsis “yes/no” and communication ability “yes/no”. After adjusting the number of cases by pairing method, 356 cases were recruited. The endpoint of our study was defined as the "total opioid dose". A statistical evaluation was carried out by T-tests and two-factor variance analyses. Results There is a significant difference in opioid dose between communicative and non-communicative ICU patients. The mean sufentanil dose is significantly higher in the non-communicative patients than in the communicative patients. Sepsis has no significant effect on the dose of sufentanil. Conclusion The hypothesis that sepsis decreases the pain threshold could not be proven in this study. The effect of the higher opioid requirement is not directly caused by sepsis, but by the factor of communication ability. Furthermore, we were able to show through our investigations and especially through the data of the pain recording instruments that the septic and non-septic intensive care patients receive sufficient pain therapy treatment.