The effect of patients' e-health literacy on their preoperative anxiety levels and fears about anesthesia

The aim of this study is to examine the effect of e-health literacy on preoperative anxiety levels and fears about anesthesia of individuals who will undergo surgery. The research was carried out with 219 patients waiting in the preoperative waiting unit. The Amsterdam Preoperative Anxiety Scale (APAIS) was used to evaluate the preoperative anesthesia anxiety, the E-Health Literacy Scale was used to determine the e-health literacy, and the questionnaire form was used to determine the fear of anesthesia, which was created by using the items in the literature in previous studies on anesthesia fear. According to the results of the research, the three items that patients fear the most about anesthesia are; “feeling pain during surgery”, “feeling pain after the effect of post-operative anesthesia” and “waking up in the middle of surgery”. There is no significant difference in anesthesia-related fears of patients with low, medium and high e-health literacy, only a significant difference in preoperative anxiety scores between patients with low and high e-health literacy. Study results were interpreted as the ability of individuals with high e-health literacy to evaluate the data obtained through digital channels in terms of reliability prevents them from experiencing unnecessary anxiety based on erroneous information.