Incidence of awareness in patients undergoing elective surgeries during general anesthesia

Introduction: General Anesthesia (GA) is reversible loss of consciousness. Awareness occurs when there is an explicit recall of intraoperative events with or without pain. It can cause distress, anxiety, chronic fear, depression, post-traumatic stress disorder, etc. There is an increasing concern over claims regarding awareness during anesthesia. Materials and Methods:The study was done on 188 patients. GAwas administered as needed using Total Intra Venous Anaesthesia (TIVA), Mask, Supra glottic device,or Endo Tracheal Tube (ETT). Patients were encouraged to report any awareness in any form during the entire procedure voluntarily and were also directly questioned through a structured questionnaire in the recovery room, one hour and 24 hours after surgery. Results: Eighty-four females and 104 males with a mean age of 39.9 years constituted the study. In all, 89.3% of subjects underwent general anesthesia with ETT, 7.4% with a supraglottic device, and 2.1% and 1% with mask and TIVA, respectively. Patients recalled events just before induction (holding an oxygen mask-49%, receiving a painful injection-21%) and soon after emergence (shifting to a trolley-26.3%, holding an oxygen mask - 17.2%) but did not complain of intraoperative awareness. No incidence of awareness was reported by any patient or at direct questioning. Conclusion: There was no incidence of awareness in any patient in our study.