Prevalence and risk factors of acute backache after spinal anesthesia in surgical procedures at Asella Teaching and Referal Hospital, Asella, Ethiopia

Spinal anesthesia is one of the routinely anesthetic procedures done in practice. Post spinal backache is one of the complications causing discomfort in patients, leading to rejection of its use for next operations. The aim of this work is to assess the prevalence and factors associated with backache after spinal anesthesia from October to January at Asella Teaching and Referral Hospital, Asella, Ethiopia, 2016. Institutional based cross-sectional study design was conducted. All patients who underwent spinal anesthesia at Asella Teaching and Referral Hospital were included. They were selected by systematic random sampling technique. Data were collected by two BSC anesthetists and supervised by one MSC anesthetist. Data were entered into SPSS version 20 program for analysis. Odd ratio and 95% confidence interval were computed. Multivariate logistic analysis was used to identify factors associated with post spinal backache. A total of 318 participants were included in our study. Findings from post-operative 1st, 2nd, 3rd days and 4th week showed 38.0, 29.9, 16.0 and 31.6% of the patients suffered backache respectively. Common factors associated with post spinal backache from multivariate logistic regression at postoperative 1st, 2nd, 3rd days and 4th week were history of previous backache and spinal anesthesia. Factors associated with post spinal backache from multivariate logistic regression at postoperative 4th week were needle size, 18 and 21 gauge needle size (AOR = 3.686, 95% CI: 0.398, 34.183 and AOR = 2.410, 95% CI: 0.430, 13.503). Our study confirmed that prevalence of post spinal backache at post-operative 1st , 2nd, 3rd days and 4th week data showed 38.0 ,29.9,16.0 and 31.6% of the patients respectively. We recommend use of lesser and less traumatic spinal needles, infiltration of injection site with local anesthetic and firm postoperative pain management.