Assessment of post-operative pain medication adherence after day case orthopaedic surgery: A prospective, cross-sectional study

Abstract Background and aim Patients struggle to adhere to prescribed pain medication after surgery because of, inter alia, side effects, sleep disturbances and pain severity. This study aimed to determine the influence of various factors on, and the and the extent of adherence to prescribed post-operative pain medication (POPM) measured by participant-reported pill count (PRPC) following day case orthopaedic surgery at a private South African hospital. Methods This prospective, quantitative cross-sectional study involving 120 participants (51 males, 69 females), used a structured questionnaire completed through a telephonic survey, 4 days after orthopaedic surgery. Measurements included PRPC adherence (adherent vs. non-adherent), in relation to post-operative adherence behaviour (POAB), normal medicine adherence behaviour (NMAB), pain severity involving sleep and mobility, treatment side effects and patient demographic characteristics. Results Based on PRPC measurement 56.7% (n = 68) of participants were adherent. PRPC was significantly associated with severe pain affecting falling sleep (p = .001), pain causing awakening from sleep (p = .035) and POAB (p   .300), NMAB (p = .601) and the treatment regimen (i.e. unimodal vs. bimodal or multimodal) (p = .511). Conclusion Non-adherence (overuse or misuse) of prescribed POPM can be a result of severe pain, influencing sleep and movement after orthopaedic surgery, indicating a need for review of these regimens in order to optimise care.