Management of Post-Operative Pain in Canine Patients at Veterinary Hospitals in Lagos: Current Practices and Gaps

Adequate post-operative pain management is integral to companion animal welfare and surgical outcome optimisation, yet standardised analgesic protocols remain inconsistently applied in Nigerian veterinary clinical settings. Lagos State, South West Nigeria, has the highest concentration of small animal veterinary practices in the country, making it a critical setting for benchmarking pain management quality. This study evaluated current post-operative analgesic practices at 25 veterinary hospitals in Lagos metropolitan area through structured interviews with veterinary surgeons and review of case records from 120 surgical cases over one year. Pain scoring tools, analgesic choice, dosing, and multimodal analgesia use were documented and evaluated against international standards. Opioid analgesics were used in only 28 percent of cases, primarily tramadol, while NSAIDs represented the most common analgesic class used post-operatively. Pre-emptive analgesia was practised in only 18 percent of hospitals. Recognised pain assessment tools such as the Glasgow Composite Measure Pain Scale or the Colorado State University pain scale were not used in any facility. Local anaesthetic techniques including epidural and perineural blocks were performed in only four facilities. Client education about post-discharge pain management was conducted in 36 percent of cases. These findings indicate that post-operative pain management in Lagos companion animal practice falls short of international welfare standards and recommend the development of context-appropriate national pain management guidelines with accessible training resources for Nigerian veterinary practitioners. Keywords: post-operative pain, analgesia, canine, Lagos, veterinary hospitals.