Abstract
Background:
Surgery is an important modality towards the treatment of a patient for which the patient may require regional anaesthesia or general anaesthesia. General anaesthesia comprises of different components out of which loss of awareness during the operative procedure is also vital. Awareness during surgery can cause an untoward event in the patient’s mental health after the surgery accomplishes.
The aim of this study is to investigate the incidence of awareness during general anaesthesia and evaluation of risk factors causing awareness.
Materials and methods:
The prospective study was conducted with 1000 consenting patients between the age group of 16-60 years undergoing surgery under balanced general anaesthesia, TIVA, Short GA, I.V Sedation, mixed anaesthesia for a period of 1.5 years. Interviews were done using a structured questionnaire scheduled at:
1. within 24 h after the operation,
2. 3rd day after surgery (either in the ward or telephonically)
3. 30 days after the operation (telephonically or in the follow-up clinic if awareness was detected in the first two interviews)
Results:
The results were analysed using appropriate statistical tests. The data compiled were analyzed with SPSS version 17 software Statistical Software. For qualitative data, the Chi-square test was used. Quantitative data were analysed using a student t-test. A P-value of 0.05 was considered to be insignificant. The highest age in the study groups was 60 years and the lowest age was 16 years. The majority of patients were in the age group of 21-30 years. P<0.001 was considered to be statistically significant. The study comprised 591 female and 401 male patients. In this study, there was a total of 736 ASA Grade I patients and 225 grade II, 34 ASA III and 5 ASA IV patients. The difference in ASA distribution was statistically significant. The minimum duration of surgery in the study was 15 minutes and the maximum was 5 hrs and the difference was statistically significant. Awareness was compared with the gender of the patient but was not statically significant (P=0.468). Awareness was compared with the type of surgery but was not found to be statistically significant. Awareness compared with the type of anaesthesia was found to be statically not significant. Awareness, when compared with the ASA status of the patient, was found to be statistically significant P<0.001.
Conclusion:
From our study, we found the incidence of awareness during general anaesthesia about 0.4% (4 per thousand). Age, gender, type of surgery and anaesthesia was not found to be significant risk factor in our study. ASA status was the only significant risk factor in our study.

Key words: Intraoperative awareness, incidence, general anaesthesia, TIVA, I.V Sedation