Evaluation of Thirst Symptoms in Patients Undergoing Abdominal Surgery

Thirst is a common symptom in surgical patients in the postoperative period and has a negative biopsychosocial impact on patients. The study was conducted to determine thirst symptoms and factors affecting thirst in patients undergoing abdominal surgery. This descriptive study was conducted with the participation of 125 patients who were hospitalized in the general surgery clinic of a university hospital between 3 September 2023 and 1 March 2024 and underwent abdominal surgery. Ethics committee and institutional permissions were obtained prior to the study and the patients were informed about the study and their written consent was obtained. ‘Patient Information Form’ and “Thirst Symptom Assessment Scale” were used for data collection. The data were analyzed using Mann Whitney U test, Spearman Correlation Analysis and Kruskal Wallis tests in SPSS 27.0 software. It was found that 60.0% of the patients were male, the mean age was 57.9±12.3 years and 51.2% underwent intestinal surgery. The mean score of the Patients' Thirst Symptom Evaluation Scale was found to be 10.2±5.7. It was found that the thirst status of the patients varied according to the presence of chronic disease (p=0.035), the surgical procedure (p