Assessment of anxiety in parents of children undergoing tonsillectomy under general anaesthesia: A cross-sectional study.

Background and Aims: Surgery in the pediatric age group entails a significant amount of anxiety for parents. Due to anxiety, parents are unable to take care of their children, which could affect the child's well-being and contributes to poor outcomes. The primary objective of this study is to determine the frequency of preoperative anxiety in parents before the surgery of their children. Methods: It is a cross-sectional descriptive study that included either parent of 147 children of American Society of Anaesthesiology (ASA) I & II, aged 1-12 years undergoing tonsillectomy over the period of 1 year. Each parent's demographic data were recorded and requested to answer a proforma containing the Amsterdam Preoperative Anxiety Information Scale (APAIS) for assessing anxiety on a 5-point Likert scale. Median interquartile range (IQR), and frequency (%) were used to report the normal, skewed, and categorical variables. APAIS anxiety and information scores were compared by using either the Mann-Whitney Results: Overall, anxiety was present in 59 (40.1%) respondents with 20 (33.9%) being fathers and 39 (66.1%) mothers. The median (IQR) for APAIS anxiety and information score were 9 ± 5 and 5 ± 2, respectively. Higher median anxiety scores were observed statistically significant in children under 5 years old, mother respondents, mothers aged 35 or younger, fathers under 40, and mothers with graduate or higher education ( Conclusion: There is a significant prevalence of anxiety in parents of children who underwent surgery under general anaesthesia, and mothers have showed significantly higher anxiety levels than fathers.