Abstract
Background: Opioids are powerful pain medications that have significant side effects. Opioid alternative administration can treat analgesia and limit opioid administration.
Objectives: The purpose of this study was to examine and describe CRNAs’ beliefs, opinions, and practices on administering opioid medications versus opioid alternative strategies to treat intraoperative pain.
Method: A qualitative, survey study design using semi-structured interviews was conducted. Twelve CRNAs were interviewed and audio recorded discussing their perspectives and opinions on administering opioid alternatives.
Results: Two themes were established: barriers and promoting factors with each theme containing sub themes. The subthemes under barriers included: opioid superiority (83%), inconsistent analgesia effects of opioid alternatives (83%), limited experience with opioid alternatives (58%), limited opioid alternative resources (42%), negative experiences with alternative administration (66%), and patient comorbidities (100%). Subthemes under promoting factors included: avoiding adverse effects of opioids (92%), institutional policies (50%), positive experiences with alternative administration (100%), and regional superiority (100%).
Conclusion: Understanding the barriers and promoting factors to opioid alternative administration can be useful to enhance its usage. Larger studies and/or surveys are needed to assess greater sample sizes to further validate the current data.
Keywords: anesthesia, opioids, perceptions, barriers, multimodal strategies, nurse anesthetist, provider
