Surgical Process Anxiety From The Perspective Of Neurosurgery Patients In The Covid-19 Pandemic

Abstract

INTRODUCTION: This study was conducted to determine the effects of the fear created by the COVID-19 pandemic on the neurosurgery patients. METHODS: In the descriptive-cross-sectional study, data were collected by phone call using a questionnaire and the COVID-19 Phobia Scale with 93 neurosurgery patients. RESULTS: The patients experienced moderate levels of fear due to the pandemic, and due to this fear, 16.1% postponed their follow-up dates at least once. The COVID-19 fear levels were higher among those who had emergency surgery, those who could not get sufficient information on the surgery processes (p=0.01), those who were afraid that their treatment might not be completed (p=0.01) and those who went to the hospital for follow-up by bus (p=0.003). There were significant positive and strong relationships between the patients’ fear levels and their durations of hospitalization (p=0.001) and numbers of visits to the hospital for follow-up (p=0.01). DISCUSSION and CONCLUSION: The study showed that, although surgical treatment guidelines showed constant variation during the pandemic period, however high their anxieties may be, the patients did not want to delay their treatments. Acting carefully in eliminating the anxieties of patients and creating a standardized algorithm will be useful for patients to experience all stages of surgical treatment processes with comfort.