Local and Regional Anesthesia (Sep 2019)

Evaluation of the attitudes of surgeons about regional anesthesia: a survey study

  • Yılmaz İnal F,
  • Yılmaz Y,
  • Daşkaya H,
  • Toptaş M,
  • Koçoğlu H,
  • Uysal H,
  • Akkoç İ

Journal volume & issue
Vol. Volume 12
pp. 89 – 95

Abstract

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Ferda Yılmaz İnal,1 Yadigar Yılmaz,2 Hayrettin Daşkaya,3 Mehmet Toptaş,4 Hasan Koçoğlu,1 Harun Uysal,4 İbrahim Akkoç4 1Faculty of Medicine, Department of Anesthesiology and Reanimation, Istanbul Medeniyet University, Istanbul, Turkey; 2Department of Anesthesiology and Reanimation, Sultan Abdulhamid Han Education and Research Hospital, Istanbul, Turkey; 3Faculty of Medicine, Department of Anesthesiology and Reanimation, Bezmialem Vakıf University, Istanbul, Turkey; 4Department of Anesthesiology and Reanimation, Haseki Education and Research Hospital, Istanbul, TurkeyCorrespondence: Ferda Yılmaz İnalFaculty of Medicine, Department of Anesthesiology and Reanimation, İstanbul Medeniyet Üniversitesi Göztepe Eğitim ve Araştırma Hastanesi Eğitim Mahallesi Dr. Erkin Caddesi 34722 Kadıköy, Istanbul, TurkeyTel +90 216 280 3333Fax +90 505 820 7650Email [email protected]: The intraoperative attending anaesthesiologist ultimately makes decisions about the anaesthesiology technique to be performed, but the attitudes of surgeons and preferences of patients on this subject may affect their choice. In this questionnaire-based study, we aimed to evaluate the attitudes and behaviors of surgeons about the use of regional anaesthesia (RA) in surgical operations.Methods: Surgeons from different surgical branches with residencies at 4 different hospitals were asked to complete questionnaires that included reasons for preferring (12 reasons) and not preferring (13 reasons) the use of RA techniques for surgeries, using a 5-point Likert scale.Results: A total of 156 surgeons from 4 hospitals, out of 167 surgeons who were approached to participate in the study, completed the questionnaire. The most commonly observed reason for a preference towards regional anaesthesia among the surgeons was the risk of general anaesthesia for patients with an American Society of Anesthesiologists (ASA) risk class of III and above. The second most commonly observed reason was for protection from the complications of general anaesthesia, and the third most commonly observed reason was the lower risk of thromboembolisms with regional anaesthesia. The most commonly observed reasons for not choosing regional anaesthesia were found to be incompatibility of the patients and patients’ fears of feeling pain during surgery.Conclusion: We conclude that programmes for informing surgeons and educating patients about the advantages of RA may increase the preference ratio among surgeons and decrease patients’ refusals to choose this procedure.Keywords: regional anaesthesia, surgeon’s attitudes, anaesthesiologist

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