Clonidine premedication prevents preoperative hypokalemia

Patient anxiety and modern elective surgery: a literature review

“…, 1992; Wikinski et al. , 1994, Winter et al , 1994; Mealy et al , 1996; Murdoch & Kenny, 1999; Hahm et al. , 2001; Lepage et al.…”

“…Hahm et al. (2001) studied 44 inpatients to determine whether clonidine (premedication) could minimize increases in plasma adrenaline caused by anxiety and thereby prevent a decrease in serum potassium (hypokalaemia can lead to life‐threatening dysrhythmias during general anaesthesia).…”

“…Again, only one study reported a correlation between objective and subjective measures, i.e. plasma adrenaline and self‐reported anxiety (Hahm et al. , 2001).…”

The effect of patient-controlled intravenous analgesia on postoperative hypokalemia in patients undergoing laparoscopic cholecystectomy

“…It has also been demonstrated that elevated epinephrine arising from preoperative anxiety stimulated the b-2 adrenoceptor and the Na/K-ATPase that transports potassium into liver or skeletal muscle cell bodies and reduces extracellular and plasma potassium concentrations [11][12][13][16][17][18][19]. Previous studies reported that preinduction serum potassium concentrations were significantly lower than those measured in the outpatient department, a finding which was attributed to increased catecholamine due to preoperative anxiety, as determined by measurements of serum epinephrine levels [11,12]. Similar results showing a difference between T1 and T2 were found in the present study.…”

“…Hypokalemia can be induced by various conditions, including respiratory or metabolic alkalosis, salt-wasting renal disease, diuretic therapy, and hormone effects [9,10]. Previous studies have revealed that preoperative anxiety can lead to hypokalemia as a result of catecholamine release as a neuroendocrine stress response [11][12][13]. As such, it was contended that postoperative pain could induce the neuroendocrine stress reaction and subsequently result in hypokalemia.…”