Effectiveness of preemptive intravenous ketamine on postoperative pain for the patients undergoing elective major abdominal surgery under general anesthesia at a Dilla University referral hospital: a randomized controlled trial

Background: The most distressing sensation for those recovering from surgery is pain. Despite the advancement of specialized acute pain-controlling techniques, insufficient postoperative pain management continues to be a major issue. These negative consequences result in prolonged hospital stays, which raises the cost of the patient’s treatment, the cost of additional healthcare services, and the need for new medications and delivery methods. Although there has been a recent trend of mixing various medications and the idea of preemptive analgesia, intravenous ketamine is still being understudied for the management of postoperative pain. Objective: To assess the postoperative analgesic effectiveness of preemptive low dose intra venous ketamine patients undergoing laparotomy surgery. Methods: A double-blind randomized controlled trial study was conducted on 120 patients undergoing laparotomy surgery: group K (0.2 mg/kg ketamine) and group C (2 ml saline). The endpoint of the study will be the total amount of analgesia consumption, first analgesic request, intensity of pain and incidence of adverse effects during the 24-hour follow-up period. Parametric data were analyzed using an independent t-test and nonparametric data using the Mann–Whitney U test. The chi-square test will be used for categorical variables. Statistical significance was stated at P <0.05. Result: The majority of patients America Society of Anesthesiologist, surgical incision length 14 (13–16) 15 (14–16) ( P = 0.765). The time to first analgesia requirement in the control group (M ± SD: 35.62 ± 10.95 ketamine group (55.01 ± 16.53 minutes, P = 0.001) and total tramadol consumed in 24 hours showed significantly higher in the control group compared to the ketamine group ( P = 0.002). Conclusion: We conclude that preemptive intravenous ketamine decreases pain score, prolongs postoperative analgesia requests, and decreases analgesia consumption when compared to the control group.