Volume 24, Issue 102, March - April, 2020

Investigation of the relationship between preoperative anxiety and reduction of blood pressure after spinal anesthesia

Babak Hosseinzadeh Zoroufchi¹, Behnaz Behnam², Abolfazl Abdolahpour^1♦

¹Department of Anaesthesiology, Kowsar Hospital, Semnan University of Medical Sciences, Semnan, Iran
²Department of Psychology, Kowsar Hospital, Semnan University of Medical Sciences, Semnan, Iran

^♦Corresponding author
Department of Anaesthesiology, Kowsar Hospital, Semnan University of Medical Sciences, Semnan, Iran Email: Abolfazlabdollahpoor@semums.ac.ir

ABSTRACT

Introduction: Surgery is a stress that causes physiological reactions (endocrine) and psychological stress (fear and anxiety). Preoperative anxiety stimulates the sympathetic, parasympathetic, and endocrine systems, resulting in increased heart rate, blood pressure and cardiac irritability resulting in arrhythmias. The aim of this study was to investigate the relationship between preoperative anxiety and reduction of blood pressure after spinal anesthesia. Materials and Methods: This prospective cohort study was performed on all patients referred to the hospital who underwent surgery requiring spinal anesthesia (lower abdominal, pelvic and lower limb surgeries). The personal information form and the BAL anxiety assessment form were completed and the patients were finally divided into two groups of low stress (A) and high stress (B). Comparison of the two groups was performed using parametric and nonparametric tests including t-test, chi-square, Repeated Measure Anova and Within Subject Effect and SPSS version 18 was used for data analysis. Results: In this study, 100 subjects (57% high stress and 43% low stress) with mean age 41.24 ± 1.26 years old were included. The results showed that mean arterial blood pressure in both high and low stress groups was significantly decreased during operation (P = 0.040 and F = 3.03). But there was no significant difference between two groups in decreasing trend (P˃0.05). Also, the heart rate per minute decreased significantly over time in both high stress and low stress groups (P˂0.001 and F = 9.002). But there was no significant difference between the two groups in decreasing trend (P˃0.05). Conclusion: Although, in general, mean arterial blood pressure and heart rate per minute in both high stress and low stress groups decreased significantly over time, there was no significant difference between mean arterial pressure and heart rate per minutes in both high stress and low stress groups, which could be due to the low sample size in this study.

Keywords: Anxiety, Blood Pressure, Spinal Anesthesia

Medical Science, 2020, 24(102), 825-831

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