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).