A Comparative Study on the Effect of Tramadol and Pethidine on Postoperative Shivering

Background: In most operating and recovery rooms, shivering is controlled by the use of humidifiers, warming blankets, and inhalation of humidified heated oxygen. The other alternative treatment modality is controlling the shivering by various drugs. Pethidine is a well known anti shivering medication. In recent years tramadol has been introduced for controlling postoperative shivering. The aim of this study was to compare the anti shivering effect of tramadol with pethidine. Method: In this randomized, double blind study we evaluated 60 patients with ASA class I or II who developed postoperative shivering in recovery room. Half of them treated with pethidine 0.5 mg/kg (01lml/kg) and the others treated with tramadol 1 mg/kg (0.1 ml/ kg). We compared the efficacy of tramadol and pethidine, and the grade of shivering 5 minutes after injection of the drugs. The patients were categorized to three groups; completely improved, partially improved, and not improved (those who had no improvement after 15 minutes). Results: In this study 16 out of the 30 patients (3.3%) in pethidine group improved completely. In tramadol group 20 out of the 30 patients (66.66%) improved completely 6.66% of patients in tramadol group and 20% of patients in pethidine group had no improvement. Evaluating the data with Chi-Square test showed no significant difference between the two drugs in controllingpost operative shivering (p=0.2 9 4). Conclusion: There is no significant difference between tramadol and pethidine in controlling postoperative shivering. Both the drugs are effective in controlling the postoperative shivering.