AWARENESS OF PATIENTS REGARDING ANESTHESIA;

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… Awareness of patients regarding anesthesia & their attitude towards basic types ofanesthesia techniques. Objective: The purpose of this study was to assess the knowledge ofpatients regarding anesthesia, their attitudes towards basic types of anesthesia techniques andeffect of previous experience of anesthesia on the awareness. Study design: Descriptiveobservational study. Place and duration of study: This descriptive, prospective study wasconducted in the isra university hospital Hyderabad, Sindh, Pakistan from 2nd August 2013 upto8th March 2014. Patients and Methods: Two hundred thirty one patients were included in thestudy after taking verbal informed consent. All patients who were scheduled for elective surgerywere interviewed while patients who had refused from participation, have language barrier,psychiatric disease, had lack of sufficient mental capacity due to poor health status and patientsundergoing emergency surgeries were excluded from the study. Patients were interviewed intheir local language upon arrival in the preoperative area of operation theatre. Self madequestionnaire was filled. All the data was entered on SPSS version 16. Frequency andpercentages were calculated to show the results. Mean with SD of patients age was computed.Chi-square test was applied to assess the affect of previous experience of surgery on patient’sknowledge regarding anesthesia. P value less than 0.05 was taken as significant. Results: Total231 patients were included in the study. Mean age of the patients was 36 ± SD 1.01. Fifty one(22.1%) patients were illiterate; while 54 (23.4%) patients were graduate. 103(44.6%) patients hadprevious experience of surgery/ anesthesia while 128(55.4%) patients had no experience. Out of231 patients, 111 (48.1%) patients were aware of different type of anesthesia techniques while120(51.9%) patients were not aware. Out of 103 patients, who had previous exposure ofanesthesia, 64 patients answered correctly about different types of anesthesia techniques while81 patients who had no previous exposure of anesthesia, answered incorrectly (P value = 0.000).Fifty three patients who had previous exposure of anesthesia answered correctly that anesthetistis a qualified doctor, while 62 patients answered incorrectly who had no previous exposure (Pvalue=0.546). Out of 231 patients, 91 (39.39%) patients were in favor of having generalanesthesia while 52(22.51%) patients were in favor of regional anesthesia, while 88(38.0%) hadleft the choice on surgeon. Conclusions: Results of the study show poor knowledge of patientsregarding anesthesia and anesthesiologists. Majority of the patients were in favor of havinggeneral anesthesia rather regional anesthesia. There is need to correct the misconceptions ofpatients and to educate the public.