Utilities of the post-anesthesia state derived by the standard gamble method in surgical patients.

Background: There are no published utilities for the post-anesthesia state obtained by the standard gamble method (SG).

Methods: We obtained utilities for postoperative pain, nausea, vomiting, urinary retention and myalgia from 100 adults prior to elective surgery using SG.

Results: 20% of volunteer participants could not demonstrate a satisfactory understanding of the SG process. Median utilities for each adverse effect were all very close to 1.0, and no statistically significant differences were found between them.

Conclusion: Our results suggest that the avoidance of anesthesia related side effects and pain is not viewed by patients prior to surgery as being worthy of the taking of even a miniscule risk of death. This may affect the decision to utilize anesthesia techniques that trade a lower incidence of common side effects for a very low but finite risk of a catastrophic complication.