Comparing the Effect of Spinal and General Anaesthesia for Pre- Eclamptic Mothers Who Underwent Caesarean Delivery in A Tertiary, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Opinions are controversial regarding the use ofgeneral and spinal anesthesia in pre-eclamptic mothers undergoingCaesarean section. Some studies recommended avoiding spinalanesthesia in pre-eclamptic patients because of concern for suddensevere hypotension, while other studies support the use of spinalanesthesia as first choice reasoning less post-operative morbidityand mortality. This study aims to compare maternal outcomeamong pre-eclamptic women undergone caesarian delivery undergeneral and spinal anesthesia.METHODS AND PATIENTS: A retrospective comparative cross-sectional study was conducted to compare maternal outcome. Allpre-eclamptic mothers who underwent Caesarian section in BlackLion Specialized Hospital from October 2014 to October 2016 wereincluded in the study. Data entry and analysis were conductedusing SPSS version 20. Student’s T-test was used to compare theoutcome in both groups and p value < 0.05 was set as cut off pointfor statistical significance.RESULTS: A total of 170 client documents were reviewed. Themean age of the study subjects was 28.18 + 4.66 years, with medianage 28 years (IQR: 25-30). Our study shows that both general andspinal anesthesia have no difference in terms of maternal survivalstatus, days of hospital stay, post-operative admission to ICU, andpost-operative complications. However, this study found astatistically significant higher post-operative blood pressure andpulse rate among general anesthesia groups compared with spinalanesthesia group.CONCLUSION ፡ Spinal anesthesia is safer than general anesthesiain terms of stable vital signs among pre-eclamptic womenundergoing Cesarean section.