The effect of pre-operative nonpharmacological methods on pre-operative anxiety in breast surgery patients

This study aimed to examine the effect of nonpharmacologic methods on preoperative anxiety of breast surgery patients by systematic review and meta-analysis method. Nine electronic databases (OpenAIRE, MEDLINE, CINAHL Complete) were used to identify studies published until October 2023, Complementary Index, Academic Search Ultimate, Pub med, Science Citation Index Expanded, Social Sciences Citation Index) were searched. As a result of the search, six randomized controlled trials were included in the analysis. The included articles included two reviewed by an independent reviewer, and the methodological quality assessed the risk of methodological bias of the studies with the Cochrane risk of bias tool (RoB 2) and then consensus was reached between the authors. Cochrane Handbook of Intervention and control group pain in the Systematic Reviews of Interventions measurement means, standard deviation values and sample numbers impact Comprehensive Meta-Analysis (CMA) software version 3 to tabulate and calculate the magnitude. Meta-analyses were then performed with studies estimating common effects with combinable statistical continuous data. To assess heterogeneity between included studies, Chi-square statistics and I2 statistic was used. The results of this meta-analysis showed that nonpharmacologic methods were moderately effective and aromatherapy was low effective in the management of anxiety before breast surgery. Nonpharmacologic methods were more effective can be an effective complementary treatment to reduce anxiety. Keywords: Cancer, Breast Surgery, Nonpharmacologic, Anxiety