Anesthesia

Statement of the Problem: The objective of this study was to determine if an anesthesiologist pre-operative visit could measurably reduce the common fears of patients scheduled to receive general anesthesia for outpatient surgery.

 

Setting: The preoperative surgical areas at William Beaumont Hospital at Troy, Michigan.

 

Methodology & Theoretical Orientation: The study was a prospective cohort survey that sampled patients scheduled to receive general anesthesia for outpatient elective surgery. Prior to their preoperative visit, patients were provided a five question survey on demographics.  Two identical surveys that asked patients to rate their level of anxiety on nineteen of the most common fears listed in the literature1-4 using a 5-item Likert scale (strongly disagree, disagree, neutral, agree, strongly agree) were distributed before and after the pre-operative visit.  An additional eleven question survey was administered after the pre-operative visit to assess patient perceptions of the anesthesiologist visit. 

 

Results: Fifty patients properly completed the pre and post visit surveys.  A Paired T-Test was utilized to compare the average change in the Anxiety Score before and after speaking with the anesthesiologist.  The overall results are displayed.  The Anxiety Score significantly decreased, on average, by 4.28 points after the patient speaks with the anesthesiologist (P-Value = 0.0002).

 

Conclusion & Significance: A reduction in pre-operative patient anxiety can lead to a reduction in negative patient outcomes, including pain, nausea, vomiting, and length of recovery.5-7  This study demonstrates that an anesthesiologist pre-operative visit can measurably reduce patient anxiety and fears in the pre-operative setting, which may impact post-operative outcomes.  Further statistical analysis is being completed to determine if the pre-operative visit is more effective at addressing specific patient fears above others.