Fear of going under general anesthesia

A cross-sectional study

Sir,

The paper “Fear of going under general anesthesia: A cross-sectional study” by Ruhaiyem et al. reported the presence of preoperative fear in 88% of patients, which was more common in females and originated from various factors (postoperative pain, intraoperative awareness, fear of failure to awaken).[¹]

In our survey of two hundred adult patients, we evaluated patients' knowledge about anesthesia, types of anesthesia, planned anesthetic intervention, and anesthesiologist, after which we informed about planned anesthetic procedure in the Firat University Hospital. Experience and opinions of patients regarding anesthesia were reassessed after 24 h of the surgery. Mean age of the patients was 36.68 ± 15.16; and females constituted 42% (n = 84). While 47.5% of patients declared fear of surgery, 37.9% declared fear of anesthesia. Preoperative assessment showed that fear of anesthesia was more common in female patients (P < 0.001) although reasons for this fear did not differ in terms of gender (P > 0.05). Level of education was detected to favorably affect preoperative fear (P < 0.05). In postoperative 24^th h evaluation, 88.8% of patients with preoperative fear found this fear to be groundless, and 85% stated that premedication was useful.

Consistent with the study by Ruhaiyem et al., we observed fear of anesthesia in vast majority of our patients with female predominance.[¹] Powell et al. have demonstrated benefits of preoperative psychological preparation.[²] We believe that increased level of education was positively associated with the knowledge about anesthesia, and that face-to-face evaluation and information of the patient may decrease unfavorable thoughts, and that midazolam may greatly help as premedication.

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Conflicts of interest

There are no conflicts of interest.