AWARENESS DURING GENERAL ANESTHESIA IN TEACHING HOSPITALS OF KABUL UNIVERSITY OF MEDICAL SCIENCES

Abstract

Background: Despite improvements in monitoring, medications, and procedures accidental consciousness is a well-known side effect of anesthesia and sedation. This study aims to determine the prevalence of different types of awareness during general anesthesia in patients undergoing surgery at teaching hospitals of Kabul University of Medical Sciences.

Methods: A cross-sectional survey was designed in which 300 patients over the age of 18 had undergone general anesthesia in Kabul University of Medical Sciences hospitals. All data were collected in questionnaire forms consisting of questions related to demographic characteristics and awareness types (dream, pain, and hearing experience during anesthesia). Data were analyzed by IBM Statistical SPSS Version 26 software.

Results: Totally 300 patients (110 males and 190 females) who underwent general anesthesia were included in the study. One hundred seventy-two patients were in the age category 18-40, 102 patients in the age category 41-60 years, and 26 patients in the age category > 60 years old. Propofol was used for 231 patients (77%), ketamine for 61 patients (20.3%), and thiopental was used in eight patients (2.7%). Twenty-five patients (8.3%, 95% CI, 5.6%-11.9%) had seen dreams; 70 patients (23.3%, 95% CI, 18.8%-28.4%) had felt pain; and 43 patients (14.3%, 95% CI, 10.7%-18.6%) had hearing experience during anesthesia Generally, the adjusted effects of explanatory variables on these three different types of awareness (dream, pain, and hearing experience) during -

anesthesia were not significant. The only variable that was significantly associated with awareness was the drug category, which affected only the pain experienced during anesthesia. The adjusted odd of ratio pain experience in the propofol and ketamine groups is significantly less than in the thiopental group (AOR = 0.03 and 0.02, P = 0.012 and 0.003), respectively.

Conclusion: The prevalence of awareness during general anesthesia in this study is higher than that reported elsewhere. The more prevalent type of awareness was the pain experienced during anesthesia. The only significant association was the pain experience regarding the type of anesthetic drugs that is more prominent in the thiopental group.