Confirmatory factor analysis of the International Pain Outcome questionnaire in surgery

The Effectiveness of Quadratus Lumborum and Fascia Iliaca Blocks on Patient Outcomes in Hip Arthroplasty

Hip arthroplasty is a common procedure with high costs and difficult rehabilitation. It causes postoperative pain, and this can reduce mobility which extends in-patient time. An optimal analgesia regime is crucial to identify. Opioids produce effective pain relief but are associated with nausea, vomiting, and respiratory depression which can hinder physiotherapy and discharge. Finding alternatives has been of interest in recent years, particularly fascial blocks. These are anaesthetic injections beneath fascia which spread to nerves providing pain relief from surgery and are used with a general or spinal anaesthetic. Two of these blocks which are of interest to total hip arthroplasty are the quadratus lumborum block and fascia iliaca block. Studies have investigated the effectiveness of these blocks through patient factors, primarily pain scores, opioid consumption, and other secondary outcomes such as ambulation and length of stay. This review takes a narrative approach and investigates the literature around the topic. Pain and opioid consumption were the most widely reported outcomes, reported in 90% and 86% of studies. 83% of these studies reported positive effects on pain scores when FIB was utilised. 80% of these studies reported positive effects on opioid consumption when FIB was used. When QLB block was utilised, pain and opioid consumption were positively impacted in 82% of studies. This paper has been written with the intention of reviewing current literature to give an impression of the effectiveness of the blocks and propose potential areas for future work on the blocks.

Translation and validation of the Breastfeeding Motivation Scale in China

BACKGROUND

There are several versions of the Breastfeeding Motivation Scale (BMS), which have been shown to measure maternal breastfeeding motivation, but there is not a Chinese version yet. The study aimed to translate the BMS into Chinese and subsequently assess its psychometric properties among Chinese mothers during the postpartum period.

METHODS

The study was composed of two phases. The translation of BMS closely followed the principals of good practices. Phase 1 included a comprehensive translation, back-translation, cross-cultural adaptation, and pretest to develop the Chinese version of the BMS. From 1 December 2021 to 1 July 2022, the Chinese version of the BMS was administered to 206 postnatal mothers in our maternity wards to assess its psychometric properties. Phase 2 involved psychometric property testing, including testing of the internal consistency, test-retest reliability, content validity, construct validity, convergent validity and discriminant validity.

RESULTS

Minor modifications in four items were recommended after translations. The Cronbach's α coefficient of the Chinese version of the BMS was .887, and the intraclass correlation coefficient was .897 (P < 0.001). The model fit was acceptable (χ2/df = 2.40, P < 0.001, RMSEA = 0.08, CFI = 0.91, IFI = 0.92 and TLI = 0.90) according to the confirmatory factor analysis. The composite reliability values corresponding to each latent variable were 0.733 ~ 0.926, and the average variance extracted values were 0.476 ~ 0.653. The correlations among the five measured variables were all lower than .85 and the square roots of average variance extracted from the variable were greater than the interconstruct correlations among the five measured variables in the model.

CONCLUSIONS

The Chinese version of the BMS has good reliability and validity and provides a reliable assessment tool for measuring maternal breastfeeding motivation. It also provides support to develop culturally sensitive interventions for Chinese mothers' who are breastfeeding.

Finding the vulnerable postoperative population: A two-step cluster analysis of the PAIN-OUT registry

BACKGROUND

Identifying predictors of poor postoperative outcomes is crucial for planning personalized pain treatments. The aim of this study was to examine pain outcomes using cluster analysis in N=2,678 patients from the PAIN-OUT registry at first postoperative day.

METHODS

Indicator variables of the clustering analysis assessed multiple domains, such as clinical and surgical conditions, analgesic-anesthetic variables, desire for more pain treatment and outcome variables of the International Pain Outcome Questionnaire (IPO) summarized as factor scores.

RESULTS

Two-step cluster identified the three-cluster solution as the optimal. Two empirical groups (C1 and C2) included patients with good postoperative outcomes discriminated by peripheral nerve block use, while the other cluster (C3) grouped patients with the worst outcomes, where all patients desired more pain treatment. C3 comprised about 20% of the participants, mostly lower limb, abdominal and spine procedures. The best predictors of belonging to C3 included younger age, being male, preoperative opioid use, bone and fracture reduction procedures, institution, number of comorbidities and morphine equivalents in the recovery room.

CONCLUSIONS

IPO factor scores can be used to select pain outcomes phenotypes in large clinical databases. Most of the predictors were present before the recovery period so perioperative planning should focus in the preoperative and intraoperative periods.