Incidence of accidental intraoperative awareness and quality of perioperative anesthesia service: cross-sectional study

Background: Measuring patient satisfaction with anesthesia has become crucial. It guarantees the quality of anesthesia service strengthens and intensifies the interaction between the anesthetist and patient. Awareness under general anesthesia is recall during surgical stimulation due to insufficient maintenance of unconsciousness. Therefore, this study aimed to assess quality of perioperative anesthesia service and accidental intraoperative awareness. Methodology: An institutional-based, cross-sectional study conducted from March 30 to 30 April 2023, on 98 patients who underwent elective abdominal surgery under general anesthesia using simple random sampling technique. We use Bauer Patient Satisfaction Questionnaires to obtain data regarding anesthesia related discomfort and patient satisfaction, and Modified Brice Questionnaire was used to assess accidental awareness during anesthesia. Data were entered and analyzed by SPSS version 20. Result: The most frequent discomfort was postoperative pain (66%) at the site of surgery and drowsiness (37.8%) of patients. Overall satisfaction rate was 98.7% in anesthesia service. From the total participants, 5.1% and 1.02% of the patients dissatisfied with PONV therapy and pain therapy, respectively. From the total, 39.8% of study group remembered health professionals around before going to sleep, 24.5% remembered feeling of facemask on face, and 13.3% remembered operation room light before going to sleep. Conclusion and recommendations: The quality of perioperative anesthesia care is critical in ensuring patient safety and satisfaction. Use of modern anesthesia techniques and drugs, as well as advances in monitoring technology, has significantly improved the safety and efficacy of anesthesia.