Effectiveness of non-pharmacological management of anxiety for patients going for general anesthesia

Background: Anesthesia is defined as a health practice that makes the patient unaware of their surroundings during a surgical procedure. The thought of undergoing general anesthesia frightens many people worldwide. There are some different types of therapies used for reducing the effect of anxiety before administration of the general anesthesia. Music is a non-pharmacological, inexpensive, and safe technique to reduce the anxiety before general anesthesia. Objectives: 1)To assess the effectiveness of non-pharmacological management of anxiety for patients going for general anaesthesia. 2) To determine the association between anxiety level and demographic variables of selected patients going for general anaesthesia. Methods: A quantitative research approach, pre-experimental research design was used to assess the effectiveness of non-pharmacological management of anxiety on 76 patients who were undergoing general anesthesia at selected hospitals of center part of Gujarat with non-probability convenient sampling technique using Pre Intrusive Thoughts Inventory (“The PITI”) scale. Results: In pre- test majority of the participants 38 (50%) were having moderate anxiety, 37(48.68%) were having mild anxiety and 1(1.32%) was having severe anxiety. The mean anxiety level of patients going for general anesthesia is 30.27 with mean percentage 37.37%, median 27, mode 21, range 42 and standard deviation was 11. In post-test majority of the participants 41 (53.9%) were having mild anxiety, 35(46.1%) were having moderate anxiety and no one was having severe anxiety. The mean anxiety level of patients going for general anesthesia is 28.47 with mean percentage 35.14%, median 24, mode 21, range 37 and standard deviation was 9.50. The mean anxiety score in post test (28.47) was lesser than the mean anxiety score in pre-test (30.27) with the mean difference of (1.8). And paired t calculated value is 4.547 *p<0.05 is significant at 0.05% level. Conclusion: It can be concluded that the non-pharmacological management is effective in reducing anxiety for patients going for general anesthesia.