Anesthesiology: Fears and myths – a populational survey
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.25751/rspa.21921Keywords:
Fears, anesthesiology, surveyAbstract
Introduction:
Peri-operative anxiety can be associated with an increased morbi-mortality, pain, and other complications. Then, is extremely important to identify and prevent its factors in candidates to surgery and anesthesia. The goal of this work was to identify the main myths and fears related to anesthesia and surgery in our population.
Methods:
Prospective audit, in which patients and companions were questioned, randomly, aged ≥18 years old, in the medical appointments’ waiting rooms of a tertiary hospital. Data were collected between December 2017 and February 2018. A 32 questions questionnaire was applied.
Results/Discussion:
Collected 400 questionnaires, 350 validated. Average participants age 46,6 years old, 58% females, 8% unemployed, 85,7% of the respondents have already been submitted to an anesthetic procedure previously (n=300). Main responsibilities attributed to the anesthesiologist were “assure the patient doesn’t wake up during the surgery” and “wake up the patient after surgery”. The four major population concerns related to anesthesia were the chance to “not waking up after surgery”, “become paralyzed after anesthesia”, “infection after surgery” and “waking up during surgery”.
Conclusions:
There is still a huge unfamiliarity about anesthesiology and anesthesiologist role, that would be important to clarify, in order to reduce patient’s peri-operative anxiety. Pre-anesthetic appointment could be an interesting moment to fulfill that goal, as well as initiatives from Anesthesiology Departments, societies, and representative organizations.
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References
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Copyright (c) 2021 Rita Saraiva, Joana Varandas, Adriana Soares, Ana Inês Gomes, Ana Isabel Almeida, Ana Sá Rocha, André Rocha, Belmiro Correia, Cláudia Magalhães, Diogo Pereira, Igor Neto, Oliver Kungel, Rafael Neves, Sónia Duarte, Catarina Nunes, Humberto S Machado
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