Patient's knowledge of and attitudes towards awareness and depth of anaesthesia monitoring

Abstract

Awareness during anaesthesia is uncommon (∼0. 1%), but causes significant anxiety, dissatisfaction and morbidity for patients. Several electroencephalographic monitors hold promise as monitors for awareness. We therefore conducted a survey to evaluate patients' knowledge of and attitudes towards awareness and monitors of anaesthetic depth. Two hundred consenting, preoperative patients completed a seven-item questionnaire. The median number of previous operations was 2 (inter-quartile range, 1-5). Thirteen patients reported an experience which they thought might be awareness (2% of operations performed on the cohort). Only 56% of patients had heard about awareness before and many (35%) of the..