[Relationship of preoperative anxiety-state and anxiety-trait in patients qualified for coronary artery bypass graft surgery to the perception of postoperative pain and other pain complaints].

INTRODUCTION The study investigated relationships of postoperative pain following coronary artery bypass graft (CABG) surgery with two variables: (1) level of preoperative anxiety (anxiety-state) and (2) level of anxiety-trait. MATERIAL AND METHODS Eighty three randomly selected male patients (44-66 years old), qualified for CABG surgery, participated in the study. All of them were patients at the Cardiosurgery Medical Centre of Pomeranian Medical University. It was a prospective clinical study. Anxiety-state and anxiety-trait were measured in the preoperative period using a Polish version of STAI. During the postoperative period the following factors of postoperative pain were measured, using a modified version of McGill Pain Questionnaire: average level of perceived postoperative pain, level of extreme pain, pain frequency, degree of pain regression following analgesia and number of other pain complaints. RESULTS A significant relationship of the level of preoperative anxiety-state and anxiety-trait with the degree of pain regression within the postoperative wound following the administration of medication (analgesia efficiency) was found (p < 0.01 and 0.001, respectively). Additionally, a significant relationship was found between the level of anxiety-trait with the level of perceived extreme postoperative pain (p < 0.01) and with the number of other pain complaints (p < 0.1). CONCLUSIONS This investigation confirmed that relationships of anxiety and pain reported in other research are true also for CABG patients. It has been also observed that patients with a high level of preoperative anxiety-state and stronger anxiety-trait respond worse to analgesic medication than patients with a low level of anxiety-state and anxiety-trait. Therefore, actions undertaken to reduce patients' anxiety may reduce patients' need of analgesic medications.