The OPIAID Zone Tool (Version 0.5) as a Composite Outcome for Postoperative Pain Management Quality
Authors' conclusion
The OPIAID Zone Tool (version 0.5) combines pain and ORADE scores into a single metric while simultaneously visualising their distribution across the population. The Zone score was associated with patient-centred outcomes and outperformed pain and ORADEs assessed separately, though a risk of overfitting cannot be ruled out. Further refinement and prospective validation are planned to optimise the tool and confirm its clinical utility.
Study context
- Population
- Adult patients undergoing orthopaedic and abdominal surgery under general anaesthesia with postoperative care in the post-anaesthesia care unit at Bispebjerg Hospital, Denmarkadult patients included
- Participants
- 145 patients
- Exposure
- OPIAID Zone Tool score (version 0.5) against patient-perceived health (EQ-VAS), quality of recovery (QoR-PACU) and time to discharge readiness in PACU, compared with pain and opioid-related adverse drug events (ORADEs) assessed separately
- Outcome
- OPIAID Zone Tool score (version 0.5): distribution across OPIAID Zones
Main finding
As reported in the abstract
- Zone 0
- 13.8%
- Zone 1
- 6.9%
- Zone 2
- 22.1%
- Zone 3
- 18.6%
- Zone 4
- 20.0%
- Zone 5
- 18.6%
Observational data: associations, not effects.
Further findings
Association of OPIAID Zone Tool score with EQ-VAS, QoR-PACU and PACU discharge readiness (secondary analyses)
- EQ-VAS R2
- 0.39
- QoR-PACU R2
- 0.35
- PACU discharge readiness R2
- 0.50
- Stronger overall associations than pain and ORADEs assessed separately
- Significantly associated
- Evaluated using R2, AIC and BIC
Original publication
The OPIAID Zone Tool (Version 0.5) as a Composite Outcome for Postoperative Pain Management Quality. Acta Anaesthesiol Scand. Published 5 October 2026. doi:10.
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