Introduction:

postoperative nausea and vomiting is a troublesome side effect after spinal anesthesia, increases the need for perioperative care and is associated with more postoperative morbidity.

Objective:

to determine the incidence of postoperative nausea and vomiting in patients undergoing spinal anesthesia in elective surgery.

Methods:

an observational, descriptive, cross-sectional, descriptive study was performed in 502 patients from January 2017 to December 2018. The variables sex, age, smoking, history of motion sickness and nausea (or both) and postoperative vomiting, anesthetic agents used, use of postoperative opioids, type of surgery according to diagnosis, hospital stay and approach to the surgical site, surgical time and occurrence of nausea and vomiting in the first 24 hours postoperatively were evaluated.

Results:

the incidence of postoperative nausea and vomiting was 10.16% with a predominance in the female sex, non-smokers, those with a history of postoperative nausea and vomiting and motion sickness (or both), in gynecological surgery, in patients with surgical time equal to or greater than one hour and when postoperative opioids were used. Age, anesthetic agents used for spinal anesthesia, approach to the surgical site, and hospital stay were not associated with an increased incidence of postoperative nausea and vomiting.

Conclusions:

the incidence of postoperative nausea and vomiting was low and the higher number of risk factors was associated with higher occurrence of nausea and vomiting.

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