Studies of drugs given before anaesthesia. I. A method of pre-operative assessment.

SUMMARY The need exists for a comprehensive study of the effects of drugs given before anaesthesia, including an assessment of their pre-operative effects, action on course of anaesthesia, and sequelae which may be attributed to their use. The subjects for such a study should be from the same sex and age group, from one hospital, and the operative procedure and anaesthetic technique should be constant. A method of pre-operative assessment which evaluates both the desired and toxic effects of the drugs is described. The results of this study can be assessed by a scoring system and ridit analysis. The reproducibility of the method is shown.