Incidence and Factors of Postoperative Nausea and Vomiting Under General Anesthesia
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Background: Postoperative nausea and vomiting is a frequent complication of general anaesthesia that can impair patient comfort, delay recovery, and increase postoperative care requirements. Objective: To estimate the 24-hour incidence of postoperative nausea and vomiting and examine its associations with selected patient-, anaesthesia-, and surgery-related characteristics among patients undergoing obstetric or gynaecological surgery under general anaesthesia. Methods: This descriptive cross-sectional study included 60 adult patients undergoing elective obstetric or gynaecological surgery at Nawaz Sharif Social Security Hospital, Lahore. Participants were recruited through non-probability purposive sampling. Demographic characteristics, previous PONV, motion sickness, smoking status, anaesthesia duration, surgery type, postoperative hypotension, opioid administration, and antiemetic use were recorded using a structured questionnaire. PONV was assessed during the first 24 postoperative hours. Data were analysed using IBM SPSS Statistics version 27.0. Categorical variables were summarised as frequencies and percentages, and exploratory associations were examined using chi-square or Fisher’s exact tests, as appropriate. Results: PONV occurred in 26 of 60 participants, producing a reported incidence of 43.3%. Postoperative hypotension occurred in 40%, postoperative opioids were administered to 48%, and 43% required antiemetic treatment. Reported unadjusted associations were observed for previous PONV (p=0.05), motion sickness (p=0.04), non-smoking status (p=0.04), postoperative hypotension (p=0.05), postoperative opioid administration (p=0.04), surgery type (p=0.04), and anaesthesia lasting longer than 60 minutes (p=0.01). Conclusion: PONV was common in this obstetric and gynaecological surgical population. The reported associations were exploratory and require confirmation through adequately powered prospective studies using standardised outcome definitions and adjusted analyses
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