Helder Pereira

Background: Debriefing is an essential procedure for identifying medical errors, improving communication, reviewing team performance, and providing emotional support after a critical event. This study aimed to describe the current practice and limitations of debriefing and gauge opinions on the best timing, effectiveness, need for training, use of established format, and expected goals of debriefing among Portuguese anesthesiologists. Methods: We performed a national cross-sectional online survey exploring the practice of anesthesiologists' debriefing practice after critical events in Portuguese hospitals. The questionnaire was distributed using a snowball sampling technique from July to September 2021. Data were descriptively and comparatively analyzed. Results: We had replies from 186 anesthesiologists (11.3% of the Portuguese pool). Acute respiratory event was the most reported type of critical event (96%). Debriefing occurred rarely or never in 53% of cases, 59% of respondents needed more training in debriefing, and only 4% reported having specific tools in their institutions to carry it out. There was no statistical association between having a debriefing protocol and the occurrence of critical events ( P =.474) or having trained personnel ( P =.95). The existence of protocols was associated with lower frequencies of debriefing ( P =.017). Conclusions: Portuguese anesthesiologists know that debriefing is an essential process that increases patient safety, but among those surveyed, there is a need for an adequate debriefing culture or practice. Trial registration: Research registry 7741 (https://www.researchregistry.com/browse-the-registry#home).

Background. The quality of recovery is a cluster of patient-related outcomes that emphasise not only pain but different physical and emotional dimensions. Traditionally, ketamine is used to improve postoperative analgesia and avoid opioid consumption and opioid-related side effects. Objective. The present study sought to evaluate if intraoperative ketamine administration (as a part of multimodal analgesia) influences the quality of recovery after laparoscopic surgery. Design. A prospective two-armed, single-blinded trial. Settings. Tertiary single-centre trial between July 2021 and January 2022. Patients. From the 146 patients initially admitted to the study, 127 patients were enrolled, 60 in the ketamine group (group K) and 67 in the control group (group NK). Intervention. Both groups received a rigid intraoperative anaesthesia protocol; furthermore, in group K, 0.5 mg/kg of the ideal body weight of ketamine was administered. Main Outcome Measures. The primary outcome was to evaluate the effect of ketamine administration on the postoperative quality of recovery using the Portuguese version of the Quality of Recovery-15 (QoR-15) Questionnaire 24 h after surgery. The total score and minimal clinically significant difference (MCID) of the QoR-15 were compared. Other variables were also assessed such as the presence of emergence delirium (ED), the Numeric Rating Scale (NRS) for pain, and the presence of postoperative nausea and vomiting (PONV). Results. A total of 127 patients were allocated to the study groups, 60 in group K and 67 in group NK. Regarding the primary outcome, no differences were found in individual categories (15 items) and in the total score of QoR-15 ( p = 0.214 ). Concerning improvement (MCID ≥ 8) or worsening (MCID ≤ 8) in quality of recovery, no difference was found between the groups (24 vs. 32 and 6 vs. 6; p = 0.776 ). Finally, no difference was found in secondary postoperative outcomes including ED ( p = 0.55 ), NRS ( p = 0.401 ), and PONV ( p = 0.55 ). Conclusion. In this study, the administration of ketamine in laparoscopic surgery had no impact on the quality of recovery 24 h after surgery. This trial is registered with NCT03724019.