Risk Factors for Opioid Misuse, Abuse, and Dependence Among Pain Clinic Patients: A Cross-Sectional Study at King Khalid University Hospital during 2020.

BACKGROUND Physicians are faced with the risk of patients developing opioid use disorders (OUDs) when prescribing patients opioids for long periods of time. Therefore, it is highly recommended to continuously monitor and evaluate long-term non-cancer pain patients who are prescribed opioids. This study aims to estimate the prevalence of OUDs in 103 patients with active opioid prescriptions attending the Pain Clinic at King Khalid University Hospital. MATERIAL AND METHODS A cross-sectional study was conducted at King Khalid University Hospital's pain clinic from 2020 to 2022. A list of all patients attending the Pain Clinic with an opioid prescription was provided by the hospital. Through telephone interviews, consent was secured followed by the collection of demographic variables and prescription-related variables. Additionally, patients were asked to complete the Alcohol, Smoking and Substance Involvement Screening Test (ASSIST 3.1) opioid questionnaire. RESULTS Most of the 103 patients were at moderate risk for abuse (91.3%), while a smaller percentage were at high risk (dependence) (5.8%) and low risk (misuse) (2.9%). Tramadol was the most-prescribed opioid (43.7%). Young age (<50) (Z=2.534; P=0.011), opioid use for more than 90 days (Z=2.788; P=0.005), and the prescription of tramadol (Z=4.124; P<0.001) were associated with higher risk of OCDs. CONCLUSIONS Younger patients, opioid use >90 days, and tramadol are associated with a higher risk of opioid misuse. However, further studies on a larger scale and in various settings are needed to provide evidence accurately reflecting the general population, as this study focused on the population of pain clinic attendees.

Considerations and Recommendations for Obstetric Anesthesia Care During COVID-19 Pandemic - Saudi Anesthesia Society Guidelines.

INTRODUCTION: Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS CoV-2) emerged in Wuhan, China late 2019 and became a pandemic causing coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). Despite its lower mortality rate compared to the other coronaviruses, it has a higher human-to-human transmission rate. Anesthesiologists may benefit from a review of the current evidence related to the obstetric patient with COVID-19. METHODS: We reviewed the literature for relevant articles as well as experts' opinions from related medical societies' websites. CONCLUSION: There are several anesthetic considerations in the care of pregnant women with COVID-19 due to their unique physiological changes. We provide considerations and recommendations for departmental and institutional leadership as well as the obstetric anesthesia providers. These recommendations may apply and can be edited, for future droplet or airborne based pandemics. The rapidly evolving literature makes it important to get updates directly from the relevant medical societies' websites.

Adaptation of CARE (CAse REport) guidelines on published case reports in the Saudi Journal of Anesthesia.

BACKGROUND: Toward improving the reporting quality of clinical case reports in the Saudi Journal of Anesthesia, we conducted this audit. The aim of this paper is to provide an overview of the different objectives for clinical case reports and to identify those subordinate items which seem most relevant from the CAse REport (CARE) checklist. METHODS: We performed this pilot study on clinical case reports published in the Saudi Journal of Anesthesia (SJA) in the past 5 years from 2013 to 2017. The journal publishes 4 issues/year that means 20 issues were studied. We used one online source to gather the clinical case reports which is the SJA website. A total of 84 case reports were studied. We have applied the 13th items in the CARE checklist on the case reports to determine their representations. Two reviewers abstracted data from all included papers to determine the adaptation of the CARE checklist. Data are presented as percentages of different subordinate items of the CARE guidelines. RESULTS: None of the 84 case reports met all subordinate items of CARE guidelines, and only 5 subordinate items were reported fully met (100%). Patient perspective subordinate item was not mentioned in our series due to lack of data in the studied case reports. Therefore, only 12 subordinate items were included. We reported those adaptation percentages of the 12th subordinate items of the CARE checklist as follows: (a) title, keywords, abstract patient's biodata, and conclusion 100%; (b) main symptoms of the patients 97.6%; (c) timeline 78.5%; (d) diagnosis 94.0%; (e) treatment 97.6%; (f) strengths 85.7%; (g) literature review 94.0%; and (h) patient consent 33.4%. CONCLUSION: We believe that the CAse REport guidelines can provide an international framework for the authors to follow in writing their case reports and for the editors to use to ensure the completeness and readiness of the peer-reviewed case reports for publication. For the SJA, we have to apply the CARE checklist and to ensure all subordinate items are adapted including the patient's perspective subordinate item and to make sure that the consent form obtained and accompanied each submitted case reports.

Appearance of Population, Intervention, Comparison, and Outcome as research question in the title of articles of three different anesthesia journals: A pilot study.

BACKGROUND: It is well known in the evidence-based medicine practice that framing the research question is the most important and crucial part of the research integrity. Population, Intervention, Comparison, and Outcome (PICO) is a specialized framework used by most researchers to formulate a research question and to facilitate literature review. The aim of this study is to investigate the representation of the PICO frame in the title of published articles in three different anesthesia journals. METHODS: We performed this double-blind, pilot study on papers published in three anesthesia journals, including Anesthesia and Intensive care (a), Saudi Journal of Anaesthesia (b), and Anesthesia Analgesia (c) from January 2016 to September 2017. We randomly selected 30 randomized controlled trials from each journal to check for the PICO frame in the title of each article. We used Chi-square test to compare the met variables in the three journals with respect to PICO frame. Met variables are those who met the PICO frame and not met are not. We assumed a statistically significant difference when P was <0.05. RESULTS: Ninety randomized controlled trials articles (n = 90) were included in this study (n = 30 each journal A, B, and C). Corresponding estimates of the percent of papers that failed (not met) to adopt PICO elements were as follow for journal A, B, and C, respectively: Population: 30%, 30%, and 20%; Intervention: 50%, 30%, and 26.7%; Comparison: 53.3%, 60%, and 53.3%; and Outcome: 30%, 6.7%, and 0.0% with significant differences between journals A and C (P < 0.05). CONCLUSION: Researches adopting PICO elements usually receive higher citation percentages. There is a need to further investigate the PICO framework in a larger study to determine whether it can be well represented in the titles of different research designs. That, in turn, will help the precision of searches performed on a PICO-formatted screen to receive relevant citations.