Anxiety in Cataract Patients, Benefits of Counseling on Patient Anxiety in Routine Cataract Surgery

Abstract

To quantify the anxiety provoked by cataract surgery and to assess which stage has caused maximum anxiety (preoperatively, operation day, postoperative day) and if counselling in the preoperative stage after admission helped in alleviating the fears of the patient.Ophthalmology Department at Datta Meghe Medical College, Shalinitai Meghe Hospital and Research Centre, Nagpur in collaboration with Jawaharlal Nehru Medical College, Datta Meghe Institute of Medical Sciences, Sawangi (Meghe) Wardha, Maharashtra.A cross-sectional analysis of patients having routine cataract surgery under local anaesthesia. The hospital anxiety and depression (HAD) scale was used to quantify the patient’s anxiety. All patients were operated by manual small incision cataract surgery under peribulbar block.50 patients (22 males and 28 females) were enrolled in the study. Patients were divided into two groups: patients getting operated for the first time (35 patients) and second time(15 patients).Highest anxiety in both the groups was found on the preoperative group before counselling. Females were found to be more anxious than in males though not statistically significant.Pre-operative anxiety was significantly more in patients getting operated for the first time than n patients getting operated for the second eye(p=0.06).Post-operative anxiety in second eye patients was significantly more than in first eye patients(p-0.0003).Patients were not unduly anxious during any stage of the treatment. Patients scheduled for second eye had overall lesser anxiety than patients scheduled for first eye cataract surgery. Counselling helped in alleviating the fears of the patient and resulted in reduction of HAD score for anxiety.