The British journal of oral & maxillofacial surgery
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Br J Oral Maxillofac Surg · Aug 1987
Psychological factors influencing post-operative pain and analgesic consumption.
The personality factors, post-operative pain experience and analgesic requirements after minor oral surgery under general anaesthesia of 103 patients are presented. Psychiatric morbidity, neuroticism and anxiety were related to increased pain which tended to persist longer than normal. Trait anxiety also correlated with simple analgesic consumption, and neuroticism was weakly associated with Omnopon requirements. ⋯ Despite higher levels of anxiety and neuroticism, women did not complain of more pain or require more analgesia than men in this study. There was also no overall correlation between post-operative pain experience and analgesic requirements. Therefore analgesic tablet consumption cannot be used as a measure of pain control.