Anesthesia & Analgesia 

About: Anesthesia & Analgesia is an academic journal published by Lippincott Williams & Wilkins. The journal publishes majorly in the area(s): Medicine & Perioperative. It has an ISSN identifier of 0003-2999. Over the lifetime, 30368 publications have been published receiving 929384 citations. The journal is also known as: anaesthesia & aneasthesia.

Correlation Coefficients: Appropriate Use and Interpretation.

Abstract: Correlation in the broadest sense is a measure of an association between variables. In correlated data, the change in the magnitude of 1 variable is associated with a change in the magnitude of another variable, either in the same (positive correlation) or in the opposite (negative correlation) direction. Most often, the term correlation is used in the context of a linear relationship between 2 continuous variables and expressed as Pearson product-moment correlation. The Pearson correlation coefficient is typically used for jointly normally distributed data (data that follow a bivariate normal distribution). For nonnormally distributed continuous data, for ordinal data, or for data with relevant outliers, a Spearman rank correlation can be used as a measure of a monotonic association. Both correlation coefficients are scaled such that they range from -1 to +1, where 0 indicates that there is no linear or monotonic association, and the relationship gets stronger and ultimately approaches a straight line (Pearson correlation) or a constantly increasing or decreasing curve (Spearman correlation) as the coefficient approaches an absolute value of 1. Hypothesis tests and confidence intervals can be used to address the statistical significance of the results and to estimate the strength of the relationship in the population from which the data were sampled. The aim of this tutorial is to guide researchers and clinicians in the appropriate use and interpretation of correlation coefficients.

Postoperative pain experience: results from a national survey suggest postoperative pain continues to be undermanaged.

Abstract: Postoperative pain can have a significant effect on patient recovery. An understanding of patient attitudes and concerns about postoperative pain is important for identifying ways health care professionals can improve postoperative care. To assess patients’ postoperative pain experience and the stat

The value of "multimodal" or "balanced analgesia" in postoperative pain treatment.

Abstract: reatment of postoperative pain is provided for humanitarian reasons and to alleviate nocicepT tion-induced responses, such as the endocrine metabolic response to surgery, autonomic reflexes with adverse effects on organ function, reflexes leading to muscle spasm, and other undesirable results (1). During the last decade there has been a virtual explosion in our knowledge of basic pain physiology (2,3), but the implications for clinical practice have been less substantial. The explanation for the discrepancy between the fast progress in basic pain pathophysiology and the rather slow advances in providing optimal postoperative pain treatment may be several, but one important factor may be that more than 95% of the literature on postoperative pain treatment has considered unimodal treatment. We have emphasized previously that total or optimal pain relief allowing normal function can not be achieved by a single drug or method without major strain on equipment and surveillance systems or without significant side effects (4). Therefore, we have recommended combined analgesic regimens (balanced analgesia) or a multimodal approach to the treatment of postoperative pain (4). The rationale for this strategy is achievement of sufficient analgesia due to additive or synergistic effects between different analgesics, with concomitant reduction of side effects, due to resulting lower doses of analgesics and differences in side-effect profiles. We summarize here the existing knowledge concerning the efficacy of analgesic combination therapy from postoperative pain studies. The effects on postoperative outcome are not included, because of lack of sufficient studies. We also exclude obstetric and pediatric pain, which may represent special pain entities and solutions for treatment, although they obviously share many of the problems of general postoperative pain. Primary emphasis will be placed on moderate and severe pain and the use of and need for