Preanesthetic administration of trazodone does not impact anesthetic recovery scores

Trazodone is administered to hospitalized equine patients to aid in behavioural management. The effects of trazodone on the recovery period have not been previously investigated. This retrospective study sought to determine if there was an association between trazodone administration and recovery quality, time, need for sedation, or reversal agent administration. We hypothesized that there would be no difference in recovery scores, recovery time, additional sedation, or reversal agent administration between horses that received trazodone preoperatively and horses that did not. Records were reviewed to identify horses undergoing orthopedic MRI between January 2022 and January 2025. 19 horses of these horses were administered trazodone prior to anesthesia. Thirty-eight horses that matched the case controls but did not receive trazodone were also selected. Signalment, anesthetic drug protocol, duration of anesthesia, duration of recovery, recovery scores, recovery complications, sedation agents, and reversal agents administered during recovery were recorded. Fisher's test, independent t-test, and logistic regression were used to investigate differences between groups. Significance level was set to 5% (p <0.05).