Elham Mohammadi, Nazanin Amini, Safoora Omidvar, Azam Moslemi, Maede Sadat Alhoseini, Faeze Vabak,
Volume 28, Issue 4 (10-2025)
Abstract
Introduction: Cataract is one of the common causes of disability in the elderly. Candidates for cataract surgery, like any other type of surgery, experience a lot of anxiety, and this anxiety has an adverse effect on their psychological, physiological and post-operative recovery. This study was conducted with the aim of investigating the effect of pre-operative education on the level of anxiety of cataract surgery candidates.
Methods: In this educational experiment, 80 patients who were candidates for cataract surgery were divided into two experimental and control groups using available sampling method. The patients in the test group received the educational intervention and the patients in the control group received the usual ward care. The anxiety levels of the two groups were determined using the Spielberger questionnaire during hospitalization, after surgery, and upon entering the ward. These levels were then compared between the two groups. The data were analyzed using descriptive statistics, Fisher's exact test, Levene's test, Chi-square test, and T-test.
Results: The results did not show a statistically significant difference between the test and control groups before the educational intervention in terms of overt anxiety (p = 0.54) and anxiety (p = 0.20), but after the implementation of the educational intervention, the results showed a statistically significant difference between the two test and control groups in terms of the mean of overt anxiety (p = 0.00) and hidden anxiety (p = 0.002).
Conclusions: The implementation of pre-operative educational intervention leads to the reduction of post-operative patients' anxiety, hence it is suggested that training be performed as a low-cost and effective method in pre-operative care.
