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. 2014 Summer;8(2):90-6.

Preoperative anxiety in candidates for heart surgery

Mehdi Fathi  1 , Seyed Mostafa Alavi  2 , Marjan Joudi  3 , Mitra Joudi  4 , Helia Mahdikhani  5 , Rasool Ferasatkish  6 , Houman Bakhshandeh  7 , Mehdi Jabbari Nooghabi  8
Affiliations

Preoperative anxiety in candidates for heart surgery

Mehdi Fathi et al. Iran J Psychiatry Behav Sci. 2014 Summer.

Abstract

Objective: The goal of this study was to evaluate preoperative anxiety and its predisposing factors in a group of adult patients who were candidate for any kind of heart surgery.

Methods: We evaluated preoperative anxiety in 300 patients undergoing heart surgery whose ages ranged between 18-65 years. Relationship of probable demographic factors like gender, educational level, marital status, number of children, family support, opium addiction, occupational status, and left ventricular ejection fraction (LVEF) with anxiety level of the patients were evaluated. To determine anxiety, the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI) was completed by the subjects.

Results: Descriptive anxiety levels showed that mean of state and trait anxiety of our studied patients were in moderate scaling. Correlation between state and trait anxiety was more prominent in females (r = 0.80) than in males (r = 0.70) (p < 0.001). Distribution of males and females was significantly different (p = 0.048). All the patients had significantly different underlying diseases (p = 0.018), opioid addiction (yes/no) was significantly different in all of the patients (p < 0.001), while family support (yes/no) was not significantly different in all of the patients (p = 0.453). There were significant differences between mean of preoperative anxiety at different LVEF values of any EF level (p < 0.001, F = 6.47); those who had LVEF of more than 50% had significantly lower mean anxiety scores.

Conclusion: Preoperative psychiatric consultation should be focused more on women and patients with higher EF. Moreover, physical activity strength may be effective on reducing preoperative anxiety.

Keywords: Anxiety; Heart Surgery; State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI).

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Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Mean total preoperative anxiety according to different left ventricular ejection fraction values (the differences are significant if p < 0.001, and F = 6.47)
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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