Endoscopy and  Anxiety

 

M.Ungan¹, S. Işıklı²

Middle East Technical University Medical Center, Endoscopy¹ and Psychology² Units, Ankara

 

Introduction and Main Objective: Gastrointestinal symptoms are encountered frequently at the primary care and upper gastrointestinal system (GIS) endoscopy is considered in diagnoses. Although there is no major abnormality for considerable amount of the cases, the continouity of symptoms are expressed by the patients in that group. The main objective of the present study was to compare state and trait anxiety level of the patients in the Middle East Technical University MedicalCenter (METU-MC).

 

Method: 33 patients who were engaged to take endoscopy were applied State and Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI). At the post intervention State Anxiety Inventory was applied. The pre and post mean of State Anxiety level were compared. Additionaly, the mean of Trait Anxiety level was compared to cutoff point of the scale. None of the the patients recieved sedation during the endoscopy procedure.

 

Results: The mean age of the group was found to be X = 31.45 ± 12.09. The pre and post intervention mean of State Anxiety were found to be X = 39.91±5.7 and X = 37.64 ±13.7, respectively. However, there was no significant differences between pre and post itervention means of State Anxiety level. The mean of Trait Anxiety level was found to be X = 45.82 ±4.17. The independent t test was applied to find the significant differences between the patients mean of trait anxiety and cutoff point of the scale which has the mean of X = 41.58. As a result, the significant differences was found between patients’ state anxiety level and the cutoff point of the scale (t= 6.40, sd= 85, p £ 0.001).

 

Discussion: The present study was aimed to compare the pre and post intervention anxiety levels of the patients who engaged in GIS endoscopy in the the METU-MC. The patients, compare to samples of the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory, were reported higher level of state anxiety. However, there was no significant differences between pre and post intervention state anxiety level. Therefore the relapse of the symptoms can be related to the general anxiety level of the patients. The present study may contain some limitations (e.g., possibility of contaminant variables). Further studies should consider larger samples and the control of the contaminent variables. For this reason, general anxiety level should be controlled statistically by the means of multiple regression model.

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