Effectiveness of intravenous dexamethasone on fascia iliaca compartment block with bupivacaine as part of postoperative multimodal analgesia for an open reduction and internal fixation surgery of femoral fracture in Hawassa Comprehensive Referral Hospital, Ethiopia, 2019: A randomized controlled trial

Abstract Background Fascia iliaca compartment nerve block is used for open reduction and internal fixation surgery of femoral fracture. Though dexamethasone is added to peripheral nerve block to increase analgesia efficacy but its effect on fascia iliaca is not known. Method A randomized control trial conducted in Hawassa University Comprehensive Specialized Hospital by recruiting 60 patients. Mann Whitney U test was used for distribution free data and independent t-test was used for normally distributed numeric data respectively. Categorical variable between two groups were analyzed using chi-square or fisher exact test. Data was expressed in terms of mean ± standard deviation for normally distributed data or median (inter quartile range) for skewed data. p -value Results There were statistically significant differences between the groups in time to first analgesia request p-value of = 0.003, tramadol, diclofenac and morphine consumption with p-value of, 0.017, 0.036 and 0.046 respectively. Regarding pain severity score a statistical significant differences were found at 6 and 12 h with p-values of 0.039 and 0.024 respectively while there was no statically significant difference in incidence of postoperative nausea vomiting (p = 0.448). Conclusion Administration of 8 mg intravenous dexamethasone to fascia iliaca compartment block increases time to first analgesic request, decrease total 24 h analgesic consumption. Trial registration number PACTR201910904223565.