Look before you LEEP: patient reported pain with IV sedation vs local analgesia

Abstract

Objective: Examine the effectiveness of IV sedation in addition local analgesia compared to local analgesia alone for LEEP pain management. Methods: This quality improvement project surveyed 89 patients who underwent a LEEP procedure: 26 in the local only group and 63 in the IV + local group. Patients completed a visual analog scale and pain survey immediately following their LEEP. Results: The local analgesia + IV sedation group reported a lower average pain score compared to the local analgesia only group (2.4 ± 2.2 v 3.6 ± 2.7). However, this was not statistically significant, p 0.47. Patients found it was helpful to know what to expect prior to the LEEP and utilized various means of pain relief in addition to the primary treatments assessed. Conclusions: There is a need for high quality trials to determine best practices of pain management.