Evaluation of anxiety and comfort levels of open heart surgery patients

The research was done descriptively and cross sectionally to evaluate the anxiety and comfort levels of open heart surgery patients. It was done with 102 open heart surgery patients in the cardiovascular surgery clinics of Trabzon Ahi Evren Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery Training and Research Hospital located and Trabzon Medical Park Blacksea Hospital located in Trabzon city centre. The data was gathered by using "Personal Information Form" developed by the researcher, "Paranesthesia Comfort Questionnaire Scale", "General Comfort Scale" and "State-Trait Anxiety Scale". In the evaluation of the data, percentage, average, standard deviation, minimum and maximum values, Mann-Whitney U test, Kruskal-Wallis Variance Analysis and Chi Square Test were used. It was determined that early postoperative comfort and general comfort levels of patients having operation . It was determined that there was a negative relationship between patients' comfort and their levels of anxiety (p<0.05). It was stated that patients having pain and noise in post-operative period effected their comfort and immobilization in the post-operative early period increased anxiety (p<0.05). Nurses can help patients to gain strength and to decrease their anxiety by applying nursing steps to eliminate the affects ruining comfort in patients recovering and in the level of fulfilling their daily life activities.