The Fear of Surgery and Coronavirus in Patients Who Will Undergo a Surgical Intervention

PURPOSE: The aim of this study was to determine the fear of surgery and Coronavirus in patients who will undergo a surgical intervention. DESIGN: A descriptive cross-sectional study. METHODS: This study was carried out with 103 patients who were hospitalized in the thoracic and cardiovascular surgery departments of a university hospital between July and December 2021 and underwent elective cardiac/thoracic surgery for various indications. The Patient Information Form, Surgical Fear Questionnaire, and Coronavirus (COVID-19) Fear Scale were used to collect data. One hundred three patients were reached within the scope of the study. Data were analyzed with the Mann Whitney U and Kruskal Wallis tests and Spearman's correlation analysis in IBM SPSS (V.22.0) program. FINDINGS: The mean age of the participants was 57.8 ± 14.0 years (19-82), 68.0% (n = 70) were male, and 78.7% (n = 81) underwent thoracic surgery. The total mean score of the patients on the Surgical Fear Scale was 26.9 ± 20.5 while the total mean score on the Coronavirus Fear Scale was 18.2 ± 7.5. A weak positive correlation was identified between the patients' total score averages on the Surgical Fear Scale and the Coronavirus Fear Scale (COVID-19) (P < .001). CONCLUSIONS: Patients undergoing cardiothoracic surgery had a low fear of surgery and a close to moderate fear of Coronavirus. Patients' fears of surgery and Coronavirus should be determined before surgery, and psychological support should be provided to patients with high levels of fear.