The effect of health anxiety on postoperative analgesia requirement and anesthesia recovery in patients undergoing laparoscopic cholecystectomy

Introduction: Health anxiety is the excessively negative interpretation of normal physical signs in an individual with no physical disease. Having knowledge information about the health anxiety levels of patients is one of the criteria that will affect the treatment of the patients’ pain. The aim of this study was to evaluate the preoperative health anxiety of laparoscopic cholecystectomy patients together with the perception of postoperative pain and the requirement for analgesia.Methods: The study included 41 patients of American Society of Anesthesiologists(ASA) grade I-II, aged 18-65 years who were to undergo a laparoscopic cholecystectomy operation and a control group of 40 healthy individuals. The Health Anxiety Inventory was applied to the patients preoperatively and to the control group. In the postoperative period, the patients were followed up for 24 hours with a patient-controlled analgesia device prepared with tramadol. Visuel Analog Scale(VAS) values of patients were below 4 due to the use of patient controlled analgesia device. Total analgesic consumption was recorded. The results were compared statistically.Results: No significant difference was determined between the patient and control groups in respect of age, gender and body mass index (p>0.05). The VAS score of all the patients was less than four. The mean total tramadol consumption of the patients in the first 24 hours postoperatively was 221.58±73.06. The analgesia consumption of female patients was significantly higher than that of males (p=0.013). The health anxiety results of the patient group were found to be significantly higher than the control group (p<0.001). A positive correlation was determined in the patient group between health anxiety and the total analgesia requirement (r=0.813, p<0.01). Conclusions: In conclusion, high level of analgesia consumption was determined in those with high health anxiety and in female patients. When planning postoperative pain treatment, consideration of the gender of the patient and the level of health anxiety will make a positive contribution to the treatment.