Publication:

Awareness about anaesthesia in India: a survey in southern India

Background Anaesthesia has achieved great heights and made advances. Patients are more concerned about operative aspect of his/ her treatment. A section of society still thinks anaesthesia to be a part of surgery. Anaesthesiologists have developed great skills but do not take effort to convey skills to lay persons.

Methods This study was conducted in Telangana (southern India). 500 persons were given a questionnaire in local language. Study was done on two group of people on urban and rural population.

Results In both groups 60- 65% are afraid of postoperative pain.  Awareness about nausea and vomiting is 15%- 25% in both groups. 90% of population is not worried about regaining consciousness after surgery.Anaesthesiologist- Urban (90%) and rural (76%) population thinks  anaesthesia is given by anaesthesiologist but 35% of urban and 60% of rural thinks anaesthesiologist is less important than surgeon.Consent- 91% of urban and 78% of rural knows regarding high risk consent. Only 56% of urban and 22% of rural knows that the risk is explained by anaesthesiologist and the rest think that it is explained by surgeon, nurse or assistant. NBM-It is disappointing to know that only 20% urban 45%rural is aware of 8 hours NBM before surgery.

Conclusions According to this study 1/3rd of urban population has limited knowledge about importance of anaesthesia as part of their treatment. Risk is explained by person other than anaesthesiologist. Knowledge about fasting before surgery is extremely low in urban population. Hence anaesthesiologist must make efforts to improvise in above mentioned fields.