Knowledge and Perception Regarding Pre Anaesthetic Check-up (PAC) among Patients in a Tertiary Care Hospital in Sub Urban South India

Background: Anaesthesiology branch has traded a long journey from a branch managed by physicians to a specialised branch which handles not just operative cases but also pain management and critically sick patients. Pre anaesthetic evaluation has long journey to go, the various roles of pre anaesthetic evaluation is still not well known to patients, which leads into wastage of resources and increased morbidity and mortality. Thepresentstudy was done to assess the knowledge and perception of patients regarding pre anaesthetic evaluation in suburban area of coastal district of south India.

Methodology: Across sectional study, conducted in a tertiary care medical college and hospital in Dakshin Kannada district of India.The patients were inducted in the study by using convenience sampling technique. A pre tested, semi structured questionnaire were used as the data collection tool. Data were analysed using SPSS version 16.0 and results wereexpressed as frequency and percentage.

Results: The reason to go to PAC clinic as pre operative evaluation was known by 30.90% participants but that will help in optimisation and risk reduction was known by only 3.03%. Only an anaesthesiologist can conduct a PAC was known to 23.03% and it will help in anaesthesia and surgery risk reduction was known to 18.18%. Almost half 48.48% participants were willing to communicate about their co morbidities to anaesthesiologist but that need to be optimised before surgery was known by 16.16%.