Abstract:
The aims of this study are : 1. to compare recovery by clinical tests, Perceptual Speed Test (PST) and Ball Bearing Test (BBT), home recovery, incidence of side effects and satisfaction of anaesthesia between total intravenous anaesthesia (TIVA) using propofol and inhalational anaesthesia (IA) using N2O - halothane during maintenance phase of anaesthesia in outpatients. 2. to find the correlation of the Visual Analogue of Sedation Score (VASS) to the PST and BBT. 3. to determine average cost per case of each technique. 40 patients were randomly allocated into TIVA or IA group. The mean ages were 23.45 +_ 5.13 year and 25.15 +_ 8.59 year for TIVA and IA respectively. The diagnosis of 80% of both groups were nasal fracture. The operative times were 34.65 +_ 24.4 minutes and 30.6 +_ 17.18 minutes for TIVA and IA respectively. Recovery was assessed by the time to orientation, to sitting up, to standing up and to success in obtaining base line of the PST and BBT. The observers were blind to the anaesthetic technique that the patients received. Recovery tests showed no difference between the two groups. The recovery times of TIVA and IA as assessed by the PST and BBT were 1.2 +_ 0.41 and 1.1 +_ 0.31 hour respectively. From home questionnaire, both TIVA and IA patients showed no difference in the first 2-3 hours of home recovery, incidence of side effects and satisfaction of anaesthesia. When asked about the difficulty in getting home, no TIVA patients complaint of sleepiness whereas 6/16 IA patients complaint (p = 0.018). The results showed no correlation of the VASS to the PST and BBT. The average cost per case of TIVA and IA were 642.51 and 363.15 bahts respectively. We concluded IA was more suitable than TIVA because of its lower cost
