Patients’, who applied to the anesthesia clinic, perceptions and knowledge about anesthesia in Türkiye

BACKGROUND: Pre-operative evaluation includes determining the patient's physiological and psychological situation, taking information about pharmacological and therapeutic history, laboratory examinations, and identifying the anesthesia risks. The aim of this study is to learn the patients’, who planned for elective surgery, knowledge and perception about anesthesia, to determine the causes of fears, to investigate whether age, gender, education level, and history of operation affect the outcome of the survey. METHODS: A questionnaire consisting of 21 questions was asked to fill by the patients who applied to the anesthesia clinic. In our study, totally 250 patients, aged between 16 and 75 were included. The questionnaire consists of two parts: The first part includes demographic data such as age, gender, education level, occupation; the second part includes the questions about anesthesia experience and knowledge. RESULTS: Of the 250 patients studied, 59% were females and 41% were males. Of these patients, 37.6% had secondary education. As occupation, the highest percentage was belonging to the housewives (33.6%). In the second part of the questionnaire, it was showed that having an anesthesia experience and high education status statistically significantly affect the level of information about anesthesia (P=0.001; P=0.001). CONCLUSION: In this study, it was showed that there is an important relationship between education and past anesthesia experience and having information about anesthesia and anesthetists. But, generally it was also showed that the patients not having adequate information about anesthesia and anesthetists and to provide the public more informed about anesthesia, with hospital policies and studies of increasing education level, the individual attempts of anesthetists and continuous studies for anesthesia displaying are needed.