PURPOSE: To investigate differences and describe experiences of postoperative recovery after day surgery between patients undergoinggeneral anesthesia (GA) versus regional anesthesia (RA). DESIGN: A mixed methods design. METHODS:Day surgery patients (N = 401) were included. Postoperative recovery was assessed daily for 14 days using the Swedish Web Version of the Quality of Recovery questionnaire included in a mobile application. In addition, qualitative interviews were completed with 20 day surgery patients. Quantitative and qualitative data were first analyzed separately and then merged. FINDINGS: There were significant differences in Swedish Web Version of the Quality of Recovery between GA and RA on days 1 to 13 (P < .05). These findings could not be confirmed in the qualitative findings, except for psychological issues as well as tiredness and fatigue. Unexpected issues contributed to a greater extent to the theme not feeling well. Pain in the surgical wound was overall the biggest problem. CONCLUSIONS: There seems to be a poorer recovery after GA compared with RA. Tiredness or fatigue is present also after minor surgery in RA. Unexpected issues affect recovery negatively, and therefore should be addressed by health care.
RCT Entities:
PURPOSE: To investigate differences and describe experiences of postoperative recovery after day surgery between patients undergoing general anesthesia (GA) versus regional anesthesia (RA). DESIGN: A mixed methods design. METHODS: Day surgery patients (N = 401) were included. Postoperative recovery was assessed daily for 14 days using the Swedish Web Version of the Quality of Recovery questionnaire included in a mobile application. In addition, qualitative interviews were completed with 20 day surgery patients. Quantitative and qualitative data were first analyzed separately and then merged. FINDINGS: There were significant differences in Swedish Web Version of the Quality of Recovery between GA and RA on days 1 to 13 (P < .05). These findings could not be confirmed in the qualitative findings, except for psychological issues as well as tiredness and fatigue. Unexpected issues contributed to a greater extent to the theme not feeling well. Pain in the surgical wound was overall the biggest problem. CONCLUSIONS: There seems to be a poorer recovery after GA compared with RA. Tiredness or fatigue is present also after minor surgery in RA. Unexpected issues affect recovery negatively, and therefore should be addressed by health care.