Investigation of the effect of preoperative anxiety level and nutritional status on postoperative pain and sleep quality in patients undergoing abdominal surgery

Aim: It investigates the effect of preoperative anxiety level and nutritional status on postoperative pain and sleep quality in patients undergoing abdominal surgery. Methods: The study was conducted as a descriptive study on 199 patients who underwent abdominal surgery in the Department of General Surgery of Eskişehir Osmangazi University Health, Practice and Research Hospital between January and May 2023. The data were collected by the researcher through face-to-face questionnaires. In this process, "Individual Diagnosis Form", "Surgical Anxiety Scale for Adult Patients", "Mini Nutritional Assessment Questionnaire", "Numerical Pain Scale" and "Visual Comparison Sleep Scale" were used. Results: The preoperative surgical anxiety scale and MNA total scores were 14.20 ± 9.07 and 20.08 ± 4.32, respectively. The highest postoperative pain intensity was found in the first measurement on postoperative day zero with a mean of 7.78 ± 1.86. Patients' sleep quality was recorded as low quality with a mean of 709.72 ± 237.58 on the first postoperative day. There was a weak but significant positive correlation between pain intensity and surgical anxiety score and a weak but significant negative correlation with nutritional status. No significant correlation was found between surgical anxiety level and nutritional status and postoperative sleep quality. Conclusions: It was concluded that preoperative surgical anxiety level and nutritional status did not affect postoperative sleep quality but had an effect on pain intensity. While an increase in the level of surgical anxiety had an increasing effect on postoperative pain intensity, a normal nutritional status decreased pain intensity. Key words: Abdominal surgery, anxiety, nutritional status, pain, sleep