• G M Chumbley, G M Hall, and P Salmon.
• Department of Anaesthesia, St. George's Hospital Medical School, London, UK.
• Anaesthesia. 1998 Mar 1; 53 (3): 216-21.

AbstractTwo hundred patients completed a questionnaire about their experiences of patient-controlled analgesia. The questionnaire covered the following topics: pre-operative information, reasons for pressing and not pressing the button, pain relief, side-effects, safety, advantages and disadvantages of patient-controlled analgesia, worries associated with its use and control over pain. A high level of satisfaction with the device, together with a view that it afforded control over pain, emerged from replies to simple, general questions. However, more detailed questions revealed side-effects and fears that constrained its use and hence patients' ability to control pain. Control is predominantly a feature of the professional's view of patient-controlled analgesia, rather than the patient's experience of this analgesic technique.

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