Assessing Patients’ Knowledge and Attitude Toward Anesthesia and Its Complications in a Tertiary Center: An Original Study

Parisa  Koohsari; Alireza  Montaseri; Atefeh  Vahedi; Shahram  Samadi; Leyla  Sahebi; Behzad  Jafarnejad; Asghar  Hajipour

doi:10.18502/aacc.v10is2.17211

Parisa Koohsari School of Medicine, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran.
Alireza Montaseri Department of Anesthesiology, Imam Khomeini Hospital Complex, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran.
Atefeh Vahedi School of Medicine, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran.
Shahram Samadi Department of Anesthesiology, Imam Khomeini Hospital Complex, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran.
Leyla Sahebi Maternal, Fetal and Neonatal Research Center, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran.
Behzad Jafarnejad Department of Anesthesiology, Imam Khomeini Hospital Complex, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran.
Asghar Hajipour Department of Anesthesiology, Imam Khomeini Hospital Complex, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.18502/aacc.v10is2.17211

Keywords: Anesthesia complication; Knowledge; Attitude; Anesthesiology; General anesthesia; Spinal anesthesia

Abstract

Background: Anesthesia is a significant development of modern medicine that makes diagnostic and therapeutic procedures with unbearable pain or discomfort feasible. Like most medical procedures, anesthesia is not free of complications. It is shown that many patients suffer from anxiety due to fear of anesthesia complications before operation. Increasing patients’ knowledge of these complications can help them reduce their anxiety. This study aimed to assess the patients’ knowledge and attitude toward anesthesia complications and their relationship with demographic features and previous anesthesia experience to ensure a helpful and informative preoperative visit.

Methods: This is an original study conducted on patients referred to our anesthesia clinic for a preoperative visit, completing a questionnaire about demographic features, previous anesthesia experience, knowledge, and attitude toward anesthesia complications. The results were expressed as frequencies and percentages. T-test, Pearson correlation, and linear regression were used to find the significance of the study parameters.

Results: Four hundred patients entered the study. Patient demographics were as follows: 260 (65.0%) female, 251 (62.75%) high school-graduated or below, mean (SD) age 42.75± 13.62 years. 260(65.0%) patients had previous anesthesia experience. Patients’ mean (SD) knowledge score was 6.83 ± 4.18 out of 19 questions and the mean (SD) attitude score was 54.26 ± 6.59. The patients were most aware of postoperative delirium (72.8%), nausea and vomiting (66.0%), feeling pain during surgery (59.5%), and death (52.3%) as general anesthesia complications. There was a significant relationship between the level of knowledge and the female sex (p-value= 0.03). University education had a significant relationship with knowledge and attitude (both p-values ≤ 0.001). There was a significant correlation between knowledge and attitude (Pearson correlation= 0.461, p-value ≤ 0.001), as well.

Conclusion: Unfortunately, the knowledge about anesthesia complications in outpatients referring to our tertiary care center was poor. Women and university-educated patients had a higher level of knowledge. In contrast, most patients had a positive attitude toward anesthesia which was significantly higher in university-educated patients. It is shown that with the increase in the level of knowledge, attitude scores increased as well.