Abstract

Pectus excavatum (PE) is the most common congenital chest deformities. For many patients, this defect caused significant psychological stress which occurs in adolescence and lead to anxiety, low self-esteem and withdrawal from social activities, which significantly affects the quality of life. The need of surgery often accompanied by a patient’s psychological trauma, especially for children. Purpose - to evaluate the role of correction of psycho-emotional disorders in children with PE before surgical intervention to improve treatment results. Materials and methods. Assessment of preoperative anxiety in 28 children aged 10 to 17 years was carried out. The Group I included 11 children who were psychologically ready for surgery, the Group II included 17 children who needed the help of a psychologist. Assessment was performed using the Preoperative Anxiety Scale (SAS) and the Anxiety Inventory for Children (STAIC). Psychotherapeutic correction included: information support, relaxation and physical exercises, game and art therapy. Statistical analysis was performed using SPSS 26.0. Results. After the preliminary survey, most of the children who agreed to the operation had a low or moderate level of anxiety, while the children who needed psychological help had a high level of anxiety. Before psychological correction, according to the results of the STAIC questionnaire, 64.3% of patients had a high level of situational anxiety and a high score of personal anxiety. After completing the course of psychological correction, personal anxiety in 57.1% of children decreased to a low level. Conclusions. Psychological therapy reduces psychological, psychosomatic and psychophysiological symptoms in patients, helps patients prepare for surgery. The research was carried out in accordance with the principles of the Declaration of Helsinki. The research protocol was approved by the Local Ethics Committee of the participating institution. Informed consent of the patients was obtained for the research. No conflict of interests was declared by the authors.

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