A Study On The Therapeutic And Adverse Effects Of Tramadol

Abstract

Tramadol is a centrally acting analgesic used for moderate to moderately severe pain and combines weak mu-opioid receptor activity with inhibition of serotonin and norepinephrine reuptake. This prospective observational study evaluated the therapeutic use, prescribing pattern, clinical outcomes, and reported adverse effects of tramadol at KIMS Hospital, Secunderabad, over six months. The final stated sample comprised 120 patients receiving oral or injectable tramadol. Data were collected from interviews, case sheets, treatment charts, and laboratory records and analysed using IBM SPSS version 24 with descriptive statistics and chi-square testing. Therapeutic use was documented in 92 patients (76.7%), whereas 28 (23.3%) received tramadol empirically. The most common treatment duration was 4-7 days (49 patients; 40.8%). Tramadol accounted for 34 prescriptions (28.3%) in the reported analgesic-pattern table. The thesis reports clinically useful pain relief, commonly within 30-60 minutes, but does not provide a numerical pain-score dataset. Reported adverse effects included nausea, dizziness, constipation, and drowsiness, without a patient-level frequency table. Most recorded outcomes were stable or recovered. Interpretation of safety outcomes requires caution because the source contains internal inconsistencies in age eligibility and the death/negative-outcome table and does not establish causality between tramadol and those outcomes.