Physician education about the selection and use of opioids in the treatment of postoperative pain and assessing the impact of physician education in postoperative pain before and after education

Opioid drugs are an important component of postoperative analgesia. In Gazi University Hospital we observed inconvenient utilization of meperidine. The aim of this study is to investigate opinions of doctors about opioid choice, inform them about opioids by a brochure and to evaluate the effect of education on opioid choice and opioid comsumption.After ethical commitee approval, written informed consent was obtained from doctors. A survey about opioid choice and consumption was given to doctors and doctors were informed for 10 minutes by a brochure about opioids. At that time doctor orders were checked over to understand opiod consumption behavior. One month later the same survey was given to same doctors again and doctor orders were looked through.In the first interview first choice of analgesic was non steroid antiinflammatory drugs (NSAID) and meperidine as opioid. The reason of meperidine preference was habituation and inadequate information about alternatives. After the survey meperidine preference was decreased, tramadol and morphine preference increased significantly. After the second survey most of the doctors? choice was tramadol.As a result, education of doctors may be partly effective to change habits. After the education meperidine orders was decreased and tramadol orders were increased significantly. Conflicting findings between the survey and doctor orders points out that education was not enough to change habits. More efforts are planned for appropriate opioid consumption in the hospital.