Relationships between quality of life and the idea of undergoing anesthesia in patients scheduled for elective surgery

Abstract

Preoperative anesthesia-related anxiety is a major problem. Our aim was to investigate the effect of the idea of undergoing anesthesia on the quality of life of patients scheduled for elective surgery by evaluating preoperatively and postoperatively. All patients who were referred to the outpatient clinic of the Anesthesiology and Reanimation Department for preoperative assessment from May 2011 to December 2011 were informed about the study plan. Patients were evaluated with the SF-36 scale during their final examination and also after surgery. We found that the postoperative Mental Component Summary (MCS) domain demonstrated statistically significant increase compared to preoperative scores (51.3 ± 12.0 and 50.6 ± 12.7 respectively, p = 0.014). There were no significant differences between the preoperative and postoperative periods in terms of the Physical Component Summary (PCS) domain or any other subdimensions (p>0.005). When evaluated according to age groups, preoperative and postoperative PCS and MCS scores were found to be consistently higher in the 18–35 age group compared to older groups (p <0.05 for all). Higher level of education was also found to be associated with better SF-36 scores in all preoperative and postoperative comparisons of PCS and MCS scores (p <0.001 for all). Patients with physical disability had significantly lower PCS and MCS scores (preoperative and postoperative) compared to those without physical disability (p<0.01 for all). Patients without prior anesthesia experience had significantly higher postoperative PCS scores compared to those who had undergone anesthesia before this study (p = 0.021); all other comparisons were similar.

Key words: Elective surgery, anesthesia, quality of life