Preoperative Anxiety of Patients Prior to Anesthetic Procedure in Surin Hospital

Abstract

Background: Anesthetic procedure and operation cause anxiety to the patient for anesthetic adverse reactions and pain. The anxiety also affects both physical and mental reaction. Increasing of cathecholamine substance secretion causes physiological change and resulted in clinical problems and anesthetic complications during the operation and post operative period.
Objective: To study and compare preoperative anxiety of patients before anesthetic procedure and described by predisposing factors.
Setting: Surin hospital.
Research design: Descriptive study
Method: The study conducted in 100 preoperative patients prior to anesthetic procedure in non-emergency cases complied with following criteria; ASA physical status 1-2, aged 15 years or over, involving surgical operation in general surgery, orthopedics, uro-surgery and otolaryngology departments. Data was collected from 27th February to 25th April 2008 by questionnaire and presented by descriptive statistics.
Results: Most of preoperative patients were married females with an average age 41 years, monthly income less than 5,000 bahts, occupied as employees, had universal health security, the highest education standard was primary school graduated, sites of operation were abdomen and uterus and had no previous experience of operation and anesthesia.
Conclusion: The preoperative anxiety of patients prior to anesthetic procedure was found to be in medium level. Comparison of predisposing factors related to patient’s anxiety prior to anesthetic procedure; patient’s anxiety was significantly affected by their education level and occupation while gender, income, health security, site of operation, experience in operation and preoperative visit had little or no significance in patients preoperative anxiety. Result form this study suggests the preoperative care team should consider these predisposing factors to prepare patient in both physical and mental status and develop preoperative work pattern for relieve patient’s anxiety.
Key words: Anxiety, Preoperative and Anxiety