ABSTRACT

Objectives:

Contrary to the standard information before the surgery, it was aimed to reveal the effect of detailed verbal information on the anxiety level of the patients.

Materials and Methods:

Eighty-four patients included in the study were randomized into 2 groups with 42 patients in each group. While detailed verbal information was given to the patients in group 1 before the surgery, standard information was given to the patients in group 2. Amsterdam Preoperative Anxiety and Knowledge scale (APAIS) questionnaire was applied to all patients for preoperative anesthesia and one hour before the operation, immediately after informing.

Results:

There was no significant difference between the two groups in terms of demographic data (p>0.005). Before the information, patients in group 1 had higher anxiety and desire for information scores than group 2 (p<0.001, p<0.001). In the within-group evaluation after the information, there was a significant improvement in each parameter in group 1 (p<0.001, p<0.001). While a significant increase in anxiety was detected in group 2 (p=0.02), there was no statistically significant change in the desire to obtain information (p=0.21). In the intergroup evaluation, no significant difference was found in any of the parameters after the information (p=0.86, p=0.40), while a statistically significant difference was found in the APAIS anxiety and APAIS desire to learn scores when the Δ values were examined (p<0.001, p=0.007).

Conclusion:

In our study, we showed that detailed verbal information before the surgery reduced the patients’ anxiety and desire to obtain information.