Abstract
Generally, patients require a detailed preoperative explanation about their upcoming surgery and anesthesia. But there are some patients who do not want a detailed explanation, because they are afraid of hearing it. Therefore, we surveyed the postoperative patients in our hospital to investigate what percent of patients would prefer more preoperative information and how satisfactory the preoperative information we offered was. We interviewed 104 patients and 99 of them answered our questionnaire sincerely. Eighty-one cases preferred the detailed explanation and 3 cases did not because of fear. The others wanted a minimal explanation. Ninety-eight of 99 patients were satisfied with our explanation.
More patients who underwent endoscopic surgery had anxiety about the anesthesia and surgery than those with non-endoscopic surgery. This finding may have reflected the recent news on TV or in the newspapers about medical mishaps that occur during endoscopic surgery.
