Effectiveness of Images in Reducing Preoperative Anxiety

Introduction: Current evidence supports the existence of preoperative anxiety and its undesirable effects during surgery and in the postoperative period. Despite numerous studies that have evaluated the effectiveness of different non-pharmacological interventions in reducing preoperative anxiety, we have not found any that use an image catalog.

Objective: To evaluate the effect of an intervention based on the visualization of an image catalog on the improvement of perceived anxiety in patients undergoing upper limb orthopedic surgery.

Methodology: A prospective, randomized, controlled, parallel-group clinical trial with a 1:1 ratio will be conducted. The study will include 167 patients scheduled for upper limb surgery who are over 18 years old, without blindness or decreased visual acuity that cannot be corrected with appropriate lenses. The subjects will be invited to explain the study's objective and perform baseline assessments. On the day of the surgical intervention, both groups will receive standard care, but those in the intervention group will also visualize a catalog of 8 images, 25 minutes before entering the operating room. In addition, 30 and 10 minutes before the intervention begins, all patients included in the study will have vital signs taken, be administered Spielberger's anxiety scale, visual analog scale for anxiety, and cortisol levels in saliva will be determined as measures of preoperative anxiety. The final evaluation will measure whether this intervention results in decreased anxiety, postoperative complications resulting from anxiety, and length of hospital stay.