AbstractBackground and Objective: The prevalence of preoperative anxiety has varied widely, from 11% to 80%, depending on the methods used to assess it. Patients with increased anxiety may carry greater risk of
experiencing pain and complications during noxious medical procedures and interventional pain management. Aim of our study is to compare anxiety and expected pain before procedure and pain experienced during procedure in first timer patients and experienced patients undergoing interventional pain management. Material and Methods: The 400 participating patients were divided into two groups. Group 1 (First timer) and Group 2 (Experienced). Pre-procedural anxiety and expected procedural pain were assessed 1 hr before procedure. After half an hour post procedure, patient was given same Proforma for scoring of experienced procedural pain. Data was analyzed by using SPSS 20.0 (SPSS Inc., Chicago, IL, USA). Mann Whitney U test and Wilcoxon Signed Rank test were used for statistical analysis. Results: Preoperative anxiety is significantly higher in first timer patients than that in experienced patients. [Median- first timer patients = 8 (7-8), experienced patient = 4(3-5)], (P value= <0.001). Expected pain before procedure is seen higher in first timer patient than that in experienced patients. [Median- first timer patients=8(7-8), experienced patients=4(3-5)], (P value <0.001). Procedure pain experienced by first timer patients is significantly higher than that in experienced patients. [Median- first timer patients=6(5-7), experienced patients= 4(3-4)], (P value <0.001).
Conclusion: We concluded that lower level of anxiety in experienced group was associated with lower level of preprocedural expected pain and pain experienced during procedure. While in first timer, higher level of preprocedural anxiety was associated with higher level of preprocedural expected pain and pain experienced during procedure.