Analgesic effectiveness of transversus abdominis plane block versus wound site infiltration after cesarean delivery under spinal anesthesia at Debre Tabor General Hospital, Debre Tabor, Ethiopia: A prospective cohort study, 2019

Abstract Background Inadequate postoperative pain relief after Caesarean delivery has a negative impact on ambulation, breastfeeding, and maternal bonding. Transversus Abdominis Plane block and Wound Infiltration with local anesthetics are alternatives in reducing severity of pain, total analgesic consumption and opioid side effects. But their relative analgesic effectiveness is not well established. Objective To compare analgesic effectiveness of Transversus Abdominis Plane block (TAP) versus Wound site Infiltration (WI) after cesarean delivery under spinal anesthesia. Methods Hospital based prospective cohort study was conducted at Debre Tabor General Hospital in Sixty-two parturites scheduled for elective cesarean section under spinal anesthesia. Chi square or fisher exact test was used for discrete variables and Manny Whitney test was used for comparing numerical variables of skewed data or student's t-test was used for comparing numerical variables normally distributed data of two groups. P-value less than 0.05 was considered as statistically significant. Result Our study showed that when TAP block compared with WI after cesarean delivery reduces postoperative tramadol and diclofenac consumption, increase time to first analgesic request time, and reduces pain severity score at 6th, 12th, and 24th hours were found to be statistically significant between the groups (p 0.05). Conclusion TAP block might be better to WI for post-operative pain management in mothers who have had cesarean delivery and it provided longer lasting and more efficient analgesia.