A Comparative Study of Oral Clonidine and Oral Midazolam as Premedicants for General Anaesthesia

ABSTRACT

Preanaesthetic medication should be effective and pleasant to be taken orally, have analgesic and non-emetic properties, should not impair cardiovascular stability or depress respiration and produce adequate sedation and anxiolysis. We wanted to compare the effectiveness of oral clonidine and oral midazolam as preanaesthetic medicants.METHODSAfter obtaining the institutional ethical committee clearance and written informed consent, 60 patients, selected for surgery under general anaesthesia were divided by computer generated randomization in Group C (n=30) received Tablet clonidine 150 mcg (0.15 mg) and Group M (n=30) received Tablet midazolam 7.5 mg. Noninvasive blood pressure (systolic, diastolic & mean), respiratory rate, heart rate, degree of sedation, degree of anxiolysis, were recorded at, just before the administration of the any study drug which was 90 minutes before to the induction of anaesthesia, just before to induction of anaesthesia, three minutes after the orotracheal intubation, every 10 minutes for 3 such readings, and three minutes after the orotracheal extubation, and were statistically analysed.RESULTSOral clonidine produced significant attenuation of systolic, diastolic & mean arterial pressure, and reduced respiratory rate, than oral midazolam. Oral midazolam was able to attenuate the pulse rate in a better way than oral clonidine. Oral clonidine produced significant sedation and anxiolysis in comparison to patients who receiving oral midazolam.CONCLUSIONSOral clonidine is the better attenuator amongst the two drugs studied as premedicants to attenuate the cardiovascular responses to laryngoscopy and intubation.