Knowledge about anesthesia and the role of anesthesiologists among the Patients Undergoing Surgeries in a Teaching Hospital. Sudan

Abstract

Background: Anesthesiologists are playing a decisive role in patient management. Present day anesthesiology is based on the use of newer and safer drugs, better patient monitoring, pain management and critical care. But the general public knows little of these developments. The study was undertaken to assess the perception regarding the anesthesiology and anesthesiologists among the Patients Undergoing Surgeries.

Methods: This research was a cross sectional study. Data was collected through a questionnaire and analyzed by spss package. The sample size was 280 patients.

Results: According to participant’s awareness, most of participants 149 (93.7%) know about General anesthesia and less about local and regional. It appeared that most of the people know the role of the anesthesiologist in administering the anesthetic before surgery (68.3%), it also reflects people’s understanding of the responsibility of postoperative pain management and most thought that it’s the responsibility of the surgeon (72.2%). There is no significant association between previous surgery and awareness about anesthesia, types of anesthesia, who is anesthesiologist and role of   anesthesiologist outside operating theater as P-value is more than 0.05 but there is strong correlation between previous surgery and complications of anesthesia awareness. Conclusions: A reasonable percentage of people appreciated the role of the anesthesiologist in administrating the anesthesia, however there is a lack of information about the role of the anesthesiologist intra and postoperatively. The need for more education for people about anesthesia is essential as the amount of information about anesthesia in general is rather low.