Long-Term Psychosocial Outcomes after Intraoperative Awareness with Recall

Posttraumatic stress disorder prevalence in medical populations: A systematic review and meta-analysis

OBJECTIVE

PTSD is increasingly recognized following medical traumas although is highly heterogeneous. It is difficult to judge which medical contexts have the most traumatic potential and where to concentrate further research and clinical attention for prevention, early detection and treatment. The objective of this study was to compare PTSD prevalence in different medical populations.

METHODS

A systematic review of the literature on PTSD following medical traumas was conducted as well as a meta-analysis with final pooled result and 95% confidence intervals presented. A meta-regression was used to investigate the impact of potential effect modifiers (PTSD severity, age, sex, timeline) on study effect size between prevalence studies.

RESULTS

From 3278 abstracts, the authors extracted 292 studies reporting prevalence. Using clinician-administered reports, the highest 24 month or longer PTSD prevalence was found for intraoperative awareness (18.5% [95% CI=5.1%-36.6%]) and the lowest was found for epilepsy (4.5% [95% CI=0.2%-12.6%]). In the overall effect of the meta-regression, only medical events or procedures emerged as significant (p = 0.006) CONCLUSION: This review provides clinicians with greater awareness of medical contexts most associated with PTSD, which may assist them in the decision to engage in more frequent, earlier screening and referral to mental health services.

Awake and unable to move: what can perioperative practitioners do to avoid accidental awareness under general anaesthesia?

I thought the last thing I would remember about my surgery was counting up to 10 ... but that didn't happen... I could hear people talking, instruments banging, the sound of my heart beat coming from the anaesthetic machine and all of a sudden, that horrible pain digging inside my body. Oh my God! I thought. I'm awake! I tried to tell someone but no sound came out of my mouth. I tried to kick my legs, shake my arms, blink, breathe... Nothing!! I couldn't move a muscle. I was paralysed and awake during my operation... I thought I was going to die!!!

Psychological sequelae of surgery in a prospective cohort of patients from three intraoperative awareness prevention trials

BACKGROUND

Elective surgery can have long-term psychological sequelae, especially for patients who experience intraoperative awareness. However, risk factors, other than awareness, for symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) after surgery are poorly defined, and practical screening methods have not been applied to a broad population of surgical patients.

METHODS

The Psychological Sequelae of Surgery study was a prospective cohort study of patients previously enrolled in the United States and Canada in 3 trials for the prevention of intraoperative awareness. The 68 patients who experienced definite or possible awareness were matched with 418 patients who denied awareness based on age, sex, surgery type, and awareness risk. Participants completed the PTSD Checklist-Specific (PCL-S) and/or a modified Mini-International Neuropsychiatric Interview telephone assessment to identify symptoms of PTSD and symptom complexes consistent with a PTSD diagnosis. We then used structural equation modeling to produce a composite PTSD score and examined potential risk factors.

RESULTS

One hundred forty patients were unreachable; of those contacted, 303 (88%) participated a median of 2 years postoperatively. Forty-four of the 219 patients (20.1%) who completed the PCL-S exceeded the civilian screening cutoff score for PTSD symptoms resulting from their surgery (15 of 35 [43%] with awareness and 29 of 184 [16%] without). Nineteen patients (8.7%; 5 of 35 [14%] with awareness and 14 of 184 [7.6%] without) both exceeded the cutoff and endorsed a breadth of symptoms consistent with the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual Fourth Edition diagnosis of PTSD attributable to their surgery. Factors independently associated with PTSD symptoms were poor social support, previous PTSD symptoms, previous mental health treatment, dissociation related to surgery, perceiving that one's life was threatened during surgery, and intraoperative awareness (all P ≤ 0.017). Perioperative dissociation was identified as a potential mediator for perioperative PTSD symptoms.

CONCLUSIONS

Events in the perioperative period can precipitate psychological symptoms consistent with subsyndromal and syndromal PTSD. We not only confirmed the high rate of postoperative PTSD in awareness patients but also identified a significant rate in matched nonawareness controls. Screening surgical patients, especially those with potentially mediating risk factors such as intraoperative awareness or perioperative dissociation, for postoperative PTSD symptoms with the PCL-S is practical and could promote early referral, evaluation, and treatment.

Intraoperative awareness: controversies and non-controversies

Intraoperative awareness, with or without recall, continues to be a topic of clinical significance and neurobiological interest. In this article, we review evidence pertaining to the incidence, sequelae, and prevention of intraoperative awareness. We also assess which aspects of the complication are well understood (i.e. non-controversial) and which require further research for clarification (i.e. controversial).