Why do patients feel positive about patient-controlled analgesia?

We studied 200 patients to identify the aspects of their experience of pati ent-controlled analgesia (PCA) that made them feel 'extremely positive' abo ut this technique. After PCA had been withdrawn, patients completed a quest ionnaire which included the following topics: pre-operative information, pa in relief the degree of control that PCA afforded the patient, side-effects and safety. Multiple regression analysis identified three factors of their experience which were associated uniquely with feeling 'extremely positive ' about PCA: having better pain relief, not worrying about 'giving oneself too much drug' and not experiencing feeling 'peculiar in the head'. Control over pain relief, although highly correlated with feeling 'extremely posit ive' about PCA, was unimportant when these variables were controlled. Becau se of the well-recognised difficulties in measuring satisfaction with analg esic regimens, we suggest that a satisfaction score based on these variable s would be a significant advance on existing methods.