FACTORS WHICH INFLUENCE POSTOPERATIVE PAIN INTENSITY AFTER SURGICAL REMOVAL OF IMPACTED MANDIBULAR THIRD MOLARS

Introduction: Surgical removal of impacted mandibular third molars is one of the most common surgical procedures in oral surgery. Postoperative pain after such surgical procedures is acute and may last more than a week, thus impacting the patients' ability to perform activities of daily living. Objective: The objective of this study is to elucidate the factors that have an effect on postoperative pain intensity. Material and methods: A clinical study was conducted on 40 subjects at the age between 17 and 40 with bilaterally impacted mandibular third molars. The time interval between the two surgical procedures was 2 weeks. The patients were allocated by simple randomisation in the following groups depending on the medication taken: group A - placebo, group B - ibuprofen, group C - ibuprofen plus gabapentin. Visual analogue scale (VAS) was used to measure pain intensity. The following statistical methods were used to process the results: T-test, one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA), one-way ANOVA with repeated measures (RMA), post hoc tests and hierarchical multiple regression. Results: The results of the study conducted show that the pain after both surgical procedures was most severe at postoperative hour 6; after the first operation the mean was 49.488 +/- 4.165 mm, and after the second operation - 39.566 +/- 4.935 mm. A statistically significant difference (paired t-test, p = 0.007, n = 38) was found between the paired mean pain intensities measured at hour 6; the intensity was lower after the second procedure compared to the first one. Conclusion: Our study showed that the factor with the greatest impact on the intensity of the postoperative pain was the difficulty of the surgical procedure.