A survey on patients’ awareness about anesthesia and anesthesiologist

• Author Details:   
• Avanish Bhandary
• Nikhil Maruthi Pallath
• Mayur Ramakrishna
• Sumalatha R Shetty

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Background: The speciality of anesthesiology is closely associated with the surgical speciality and patient care peri-operatively. In spite of this, awareness of the speciality amidst patients seems to be lacking as indicated from few of the earlier studies. We planned this survey to assess the patients’ knowledge about the speciality of anesthesiology and the role of anesthesiologist in our hospital setting.
Methods: In this cross sectional questionnaire based study, conducted in a tertiary care teaching hospital, 180 patients posted for elective surgery over six months were included. Structured questionnaire to identify the patients’ perception about the speciality of anesthesiology, the role of anesthesiologists inside and outside the operating room and patients’ desire for explanation of anesthesia by anesthesiologists were included.
Results: In our survey, 40% of the patients did not know that anesthesiologists are in charge of anesthesia during the surgery.  Among the patients’ who had previous anesthetic exposure, 69.4% felt that anesthesiologist is the doctor who is in charge of anesthesia. But, these patients’ had very little knowledge about the roles of anesthesiologist inside and outside the operating room. Interestingly 51.7% patients wanted to receive an explanation of anesthesia pre procedure by an anesthesiologist.
Conclusion: The awareness of the patients’ knowledge regarding anesthesiology and the role of anesthesiologist are disappointing. The risks and responsibility by anesthesiologists actually involved in managing patients are seldom understood by the patients. Adequate measures needs to be taken to enlighten the patients about anesthesia and various responsibilities of an anesthesiologist.

Key words: Anesthesiology, anesthesiologist’s role, Patient’s knowledge, Survey, Awareness