Background and Objectives:  morphine consumption per capita is an indirect indicator commonly used for national evaluation of pain treatment quality. For small scale level like a hospital, direct pain assessment of patient is a practical indicator. However, the amount of yearly morphine used or a trend of morphine consumption per patient or per visit may be useful indicator for monitoring the quality of pain treatment but it is usually neglected. Objective of this study aimed to present the yearly consumption of morphine and morphine consumption per visit at Srinagarind Hospital.

Methods: Interesting data were retrospectively collected from pharmacy unit and department of Anesthesiology, Four types of opioids (morphine, pethidine, fentanyl and methadone) used during the period of 2006-2013 were analyzed and converted to be an oral morphine in gram equivalence. Numbers of patients received opioids per year during the study period were also recorded.

Results:  The yearly morphine equivalence consumption during 2006-2013 were 14111.17, 7757.51, 8825.78, 13339.33, 11530.29, 14859.96, 11151.08, 16112 gram, respectively. The total number of patients received opioids were 628453, 692628, 714763, 743732, 760150, 777507, 823571, 874196 visit per year, respectively. The proportions of oral morphine per visit were 0.022, 0.011, 0.012, 0.017, 0.015, 0.019, 0.013, 0.018 gram, respectively.

Conclusion: The yearly morphine supply and the proportion of morphine consumption per visit during 2006-2013 were not increased. Therefore, morphine consumption per year or per visit in combined with pain scores may be useful indicators for monitoring the quality of pain treatment for a hospital level.