Rethinking “Good Quality Anaesthesia”: Beyond Surrogate Endpoints to Meaningful Outcomes

Abstract

Defining endpoints and outcomes is important for research planning, execution, and publication. Historically, anaesthesia-related research has focused mainly on surrogate endpoints such as pain scores, opioid consumption, haemodynamic stability, time to discharge, length of hospital stay, etc. (1,2) The use of such surrogate outcomes primarily depends on their ease of measurement, timeliness, statistical responsiveness, and feasibility within a short study window. Though these markers may seem feasible, simpler, and more practical, the critical question is “whether these markers truly represent quality in anaesthesia care, or merely approximate fragments of it.”