Surgical Anxiety among Female Patients Undergoing Surgery at Misrata Medical Center

Abstract

Surgical anxiety is a common manifestation of general anxiety experienced by patients prior to undergoing any surgical procedure throughout their lives. While often a normal and transient response that resolves upon successful completion of the surgery, this type of anxiety can frequently become a barrier, hindering the successful completion of or even the initiation of a surgical procedure. This is often due to panic attacks and intense fear that afflict patients who lack sufficient information regarding the safety of the specific surgical type, its success rate, the surgeon's skill, and the duration and speed of recovery.

This research aims to identify the level of surgical anxiety among female patients anticipating surgery at Misrata Medical Center. It also seeks to explore the relationship between this anxiety and other variables such as age, number of previous surgeries, and social status. Furthermore, the study intends to determine the most common causes and symptoms experienced by individuals with surgical anxiety, classify the nature of this anxiety (whether it is a state or a trait), and highlight the crucial role of psychological counselors, alongside physicians and surgeons, in reducing tension and managing panic and fear. These emotional states, if unchecked, can physiologically impact the patient's health. Additionally, this research aims to draw the attention of researchers and specialists in the field of psychological tool design, tests, and scales to the importance of developing a local scale to measure surgical anxiety, as, to the best of the researcher's knowledge, no existing Arabic or local tool specifically measures this concept.