Fear, Anxiety, and Beliefs about Surgery in Candidates Patients for Coronary Artery Bypass Grafting

The purpose of this study was to identify the prevalence of fear, anxiety and beliefs about surgery amongst coronary artery bypass graft surgery (CABG) candidates and to evaluate the correlations between fear and anxiety and other relevant factors. A total of 277 patients hospitalized for CABG between October 2011 and January 2012 were included in this study. The Bypass Grafting Fear Scale and the Spielberg Questionnaire STATE Inventory were given to the patients the day after hospitalization to measure fear and anxiety. Two hundred and seventy-seven patients completed the questionnaire. Our results showed that 3.32% of our study population had no fear, whilst 53.14% had low, 38.75% moderate, and only 4.08% high levels of fear. Also, 69.14% of the respondents had moderate, 19.70% low, and11.15% severe levels of anxiety. In our CABG candidates, fear of pain after surgery had the highest frequency, followed by fear of health deterioration, fear of myocardial infarction, and fear of CABG surgery. Fear was observed to be more common amongst the female respondents, while age had no significant correlation with fear. Anxiety and opium consumption and cigarette smoking were associated with reduction of fear. The results of this study help in better identifying the most common fears and measure the prevalence of fear and anxiety in candidates for coronary artery bypass grafting.