The effect of virtual reality practice on pain, anxiety and vital size during the procedure in hernia patients operated with spinal anesthesia

Materials and Methods: The population was comprised of hernia patients who came to the General Surgery Operating Room of Manisa City Hospital between Dec. 15.04.2022- Dec. 15.04.2023 and were operated with spinal anesthesia. The research sample was randomized from among the patients who agreed to participate in the study among the hernia patients operated with spinal anesthesia in the General Surgery Operating Room of Manisa City Hospital and formed a group of 110 patients. Power analysis was applied to determine the sample size. In the study, 110 patients were reached, including 55 controls and 55 experimental groups. The "Individual Presentation Form", "Numerical Pain Scale", "State‐trait anxiety inventory (STAI FORM TX‐1, TX‐2)" and "Vital Signs Form" were used as data collection tools. The patients in the study group were monitored with the "Relax with Nature" licensed product virtual reality practice with music background with virtual reality glasses for 20 minutes during the surgical procedure. The patients were shown videos of lakes, forests, waterfalls, rivers and beaches. While standard surgical procedure and nursing care were applied to the patients in the control group without any procedure. SPSS Statistics 22.0 package program was used for the evaluation of the data. In the analysis of the data, number percentage distribution and descriptive statistics, chi-square test for evaluating the homogeneity of groups, The Mann Whitney U test were performed to identify demographic characteristics. The normal distribution of the data was examined by The Kolmogorov-Smirnov test. For normally distributed data, t-test was used for independent groups, and Mann Whitney U and Wilcoxon Signed-Rank tests were used for data not normally distributed. Findings: It was found that the average pain intensity scores of the patients in the experimental group were lower than the average pain intensity scores of the patients in the control group (P<0,05). It was found that there was a significant difference between the mean heart rate, systolic blood pressure, diastolic blood pressure, respiratory rate and body temperature scores of the patients in the experimental group before the procedure and during the procedure (p<0.05), the mean scores of the patients during the procedure were lower than the mean scores before the procedure. There was a significant difference between the mean scores of respiratory rates among the experimental and control groups of patients in terms of the order of procedures (p<0.05). It was found that the mean scores of the experimental group patients' procedure order were higher than those of the control group patients' procedure order. It was determined that there was no significant difference between the mean scores of systolic blood pressure, diastolic blood pressure, and respiratory rate before the procedure among the experimental and control groups of patients (p>0.05). It was found that there was no significant difference between the mean scores of heart rate, body temperature, and saturation before and during the procedure among the experimental and control groups of patients (p>0.05). There was a significant difference between the mean scores of state anxiety inventory during the procedure among the experimental and control groups of patients (p<0.05). It was observed that the average scores of the experimental group patients were lower compared to the average scores of the control group patients. It was found that the pre-procedure state anxiety inventory score of the patients in the experimental group was higher than the procedure order state anxiety inventory score. Compared to the experimental group, it was found that the amount of increase in the processing order status anxiety inventory score was greater in the control group. Results and Recommendations: Use of virtual reality glasses in hernia patients operated under spinal anesthesia; It is used as a method of diverting attention from the noisy and irritating environment of the operating room environment; It was seen that it reduced pain and anxiety and had positive effects on vital signs. In line with the results obtained from the research; In the operating room environment, since the use of virtual reality glasses during the surgical procedure has positive effects on pain, anxiety and vital signs, the use of virtual reality glasses as a method of distraction in nursing practices and the use of virtual reality glasses in patients operated under spinal anesthesia in the operating room, increasing the evidence-based literature. resources are recommended.