The Role of Anxiety in Acute Pain and Nausea-Vomiting in Children After Surgery

Aim This study was conducted to examine the role of preoperative anxiety in postoperative acute pain and nausea and vomiting in children. Method In this study, FLAAC Pain Scale, modified Yale Preoperative Anxiety Scale and BARF Nausea Scale Score were used. Shapiro-Wilk test was used to evaluate the normal distribution of variables. Descriptive analysis used mean and standard deviation values for presentation purposes. Results A total of 77 patients were included in the study. The mean age of the patients was 9.84 ± 2.52 years and 74.03% were male. 24.68% of the children were attending second grade. The mean body weight of the children was 30.78 ± 9.88 kg, and their height was 132.19 ± 10.92 cm. 37.66% of the children had undergone surgery before and 46.75% had been hospitalized before. The mean hospitalization time was 3.37 ± 3.58. It was found that there was a relationship between the FLAAC Pain Scale, Yale Preoperative Anxiety Scale and Barf Nausea Scales, and as a result of the regression analysis, anxiety had a mediating role in the occurrence of pain and nausea. Conclusion These results showed that preoperative anxiety plays an important role in the prevention and treatment of postoperative pain and nausea-vomiting in children.