Abhinav Pai, Deependra Suresh Kamble, Esha Nilekani, Shashank Pandey
BACKGROUND Anaesthesia makes a patient unaware of his/her surroundings during surgery also relieving pain which may lead to intolerable experiences and unwanted memories. This study was undertaken to recognise concerns of patients prior to surgery, assess the source of distress and determine the relationship between fears, demographics and relation to internet exposure. 71% patients were previously exposed once or more than once to anaesthesia. Fear was most commonly associated with pain in 40% patients. 12% patients completely agreed that the internet alone helped to allay any fear/doubt they had, 52% felt the internet only partially helped their doubts and they needed reassurance from the doctor also and 36% felt that only the doctor could allay their fears with regard to the procedure. Proper anaesthesia should allow a patient to be not anxious, but cooperative to quicken induction as well as recovery, and as far as possible a comfortable experience to make the perioperative period a realty calm. METHODS This is an observational cross-sectional survey carried out using printed questionnaire distributed among patients at outpatient level during preanaesthetic check-up prior to surgery. A confidence interval of 95% with an alpha value of 0.05% was considered; two-sided test required a sample size of 400 and was thought to have an error of 5%. Data collection was done at outpatient level. RESULTS Fear was mostly associate with pain in 40% patients, secondarily to needle pricks and waking up from anaesthesia, 25% feared awareness. 12% patients completely agreed that the internet alone helped to allay any fear/doubt they had, 52% felt that the internet only partially helped their doubts and they needed reassurance from the doctor also and 36% felt that only the doctor could allay their fears with the procedure. CONCLUSIONS Fear related to anaesthesia lies in doubts and misinformation in the minds of patients for the first anaesthetic. Availability of source of knowledge like the internet has made people aware of many things, guiding patients in the right direction to gain information which is credible and correct is important
