The effect of fear on comfort level before surgery in patients undergoing total knee replacement

This study was conducted as a descriptive study to determine the effect of preoperative fear on postoperative comfort level in patients undergoing total knee replacement surgery. It was conducted with 280 patients who met the inclusion criteria and underwent total knee replacement surgery between May 2024 and May 2025 at the İstinye State Hospital Orthopedic Service. Patients who volunteered to participate in the study filled out the "Informed Consent Form" and their verbal and written permissions were obtained. The descriptive characteristics form, surgical fear scale, and general comfort scale were filled in the day before the surgery. The general comfort scale was filled in by the researcher on the first postoperative day using the face-to-face interview method. The findings obtained from the study were evaluated using the IBM SPSS Statistics 25.0 (IBM SPSS Statistics for Windows, Version 25.0. Armonk, NY: IBM Corp.) package program. Number and percentage analyses were performed for qualitative data, and minimum, maximum, mean, standard deviation, and median analyses were performed for quantitative data. Comparisons of scales and subdimensions of binary variables were analyzed using the Mann-Whitney U test, and comparisons of groups with more than two variables using the scales and subdimensions were analyzed using the Kruskall-Wallis test. The results of this study showed that the mean age of the patients was 67±6.1, 81.4% were female, and 81.8% had previously undergone surgery. The mean short-term surgical fear scale score of the patients was 12.13±8.6, the long-term surgical fear scale score was 8.13±6.5, the total surgical fear scale score was 20.25±10.84, and the total general comfort scale score was 147.24±16.17. In the relational analysis of the patients' surgical fear scale and general comfort scale and its sub-dimensions, it was seen that there was a moderate, negative and statistically significant relationship between all scales and sub-dimensions.In the study, it was concluded that there was a statistically negative correlation between the total scores of the patients' surgical fear scale and the total scores of the general comfort scale, and that as the patients' surgical fear level increased, their post-surgical comfort level decreased.