• P R Nielsen, P A Christensen, C S Meyhoff, and M U Werner.
• Multidisciplinary Pain Centre 7612, Neuroscience Centre, Rigshospitalet, Copenhagen University Hospital, Copenhagen, Denmark. rotboell@rh.dk
• Acta Anaesthesiol Scand. 2012 Jul 1; 56 (6): 686-94.

BackgroundIn Denmark, the first acute pain service (APS) was introduced in 1993. An important objective became to facilitate implementation of accelerated post-operative rehabilitation programmes (ACC) in selected procedures in abdominal, gynaecological and orthopaedic surgery. Therefore, it is of considerable interest to study the association between the developments of post-operative pain management and the ACC by sequential analyses from 2000 to 2009.MethodsIn 2000, 2003, 2006 and 2009, a questionnaire was mailed to all Danish anaesthesiology departments. The headings of the questionnaire were demographics of responder departments, resources allocated to pain management methods, quality assessment methods, research activities and implementation of ACC.ResultsThe responder rates varied between 80% and 94% (mean 88%) representing a mean number of anaesthetics of 340.000 per year. The number of APSs in the study period varied in university hospitals between 52% and 71% (P = 0.01), regional hospitals between 8% and 40% (P < 0.01), and local hospitals between 0% and 47% (P < 0.01). The prevalences of departments actively engaged in ACC were 40% in 2000, 54% in 2003, 73% in 2006 and 80% in 2009 (P < 0.01).ConclusionsThe study, spanning nearly a decade, illustrates that following an increase in number of APSs from 2000 to 2006, followed by a significant decline, a steadily increasing number of departments implemented ACC.© 2012 The Authors. Acta Anaesthesiologica Scandinavica © 2012 The Acta Anaesthesiologica Scandinavica Foundation.

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