THE LEVEL OF ANXIETY OF PATIENTS WITH POSTPONED ELECTIVE SURGERIES IN A TERTIARY GOVERNMENT HOSPITAL

Abstract

Preoperative anxiety is a challenging concept in the preoperative care of patients. Most patients who are about to undergo an elective surgery experience anxiety and it is widely accepted as an anticipated response. Postponement of elective surgical procedures causes significant emotional trauma in the patients as well as on their families and the community in general, and its impact on hospital resources is huge due to prolonged hospitalization and high cost of health care. A descriptive correlational design was used to describe the data. The data was analyzed using frequency and simple percentage, weighted mean, paired ttest, and Chi-square test. A questionnaire based on the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory(STAI) by Charles Spielberger, R. L. Gorsuch, and R. E. Lushene was used which consisted of 40 self-reported items pertaining to anxiety affect. To ensure ethical compliance, an informed consent was obtained from the respondents and data was then held with utmost confidentiality. The results show that Orthopedic cases account for 38.89% which is the most commonly postponed elective surgeries, due to the length of the surgery. Therefore, the level of anxiety in patients with postponed elective surgeries is moderately high (40.5) and a significant difference between the level of state anxiety before the scheduled surgery and prior to rescheduled surgery with p-value (0.023) was observed at a=0.05 and there was no significant difference in the trait anxiety with the p-value (0.740) at a=0.05.