Reducing Perioperative Anxiety with Procedural Educational Videos, Suggests Study

Preoperative anxiety affects up to 80% of surgical patients, increasing anesthetic requirements and physiological stress. Because traditional education often fails due to literacy barriers and misconceptions regarding regional anesthesia, researchers from Narayana Hrudayalaya and K S Hegde Medical Academy investigated using multimedia videos to bridge this gap and reduce perioperative distress.

Therefore, the prospective randomized trial at a tertiary hospital assigned 84 adults scheduled for elective regional blocks to either video-assisted education or standard verbal instructions. Researchers used the Amsterdam Preoperative Anxiety and Information Scale (APAIS) to quantify stress and informational needs at the pre-anesthetic consultation and again on the day of surgery. By excluding patients with pre-existing anxiety or communication barriers, the study isolated the impact of multimedia tools on perioperative anxiety and patient satisfaction.

The key clinical findings of the study include:

• Substantial Anxiety Mitigation: The study noted that 73.8% of patients in the video group achieved a "low anxiety" status by the day of surgery, a stark contrast to the 14.3% observed in those receiving only verbal descriptions.

• Resolution of Informational Needs: A total of 100% of the video-viewing cohort reported a low need for further procedural information on the day of surgery, compared to only 59.5% in the non-video group, highlighting the study's success in addressing patient concerns.

• Elimination of High-Stress States: While 52.4% of participants initially presented with high anxiety at consultation, the video intervention successfully reduced "high anxiety" scores to 0% by the time of surgery, whereas 28.6% of the control group remained highly anxious.

• Enhanced Patient Satisfaction: Superior clinical experiences were recorded in the video-assisted group, with 50% of patients reporting they were "very satisfied" with their care compared to only 33.3% of their counterparts in the verbal-only group.

• Consistency Across Techniques: Whether patients were undergoing spinal anesthesia or ultrasound-guided brachial plexus blocks, the study found the multimedia intervention was equally effective in standardizing the information provided and reducing the vagueness of the upcoming experience.

The results suggest that procedure-specific educational videos are a potent clinical intervention, as evidenced by the complete elimination of "high anxiety" scores in the intervention group by the morning of the procedure. This multimedia approach effectively standardizes patient education and minimizes the risks of miscommunication during the perioperative period.

Thus, the study concludes clinicians should consider integrating these brief multimedia interventions into routine pre-anesthetic check-ups to enhance the overall perioperative experience and improve patient understanding of regional techniques.

Although the study was limited by a relatively small sample size and the potential for observer bias, future investigations could explore the long-term impacts of such visual tools on post-operative recovery outcomes and the overall duration of hospital stays.

Reference

Ali II, Alexander LM, Dsouza JS. Video-assisted pre-anaesthetic patient education in regional anaesthesia: A prospective study on patient anxiety. Indian J Clin Anaesth. 2025;12(2):343-349.