State Anxiety Level in Patients Undergoing Upper Gastrointestinal Endoscopy

A single blind RCT was conducted to assess level of state anxiety between two interventional groups; counselling group and video group. 232 consecutive patients were enrolled from the outpatient department who were scheduled to undergo either a gastroscopy or a colonoscopy (diagnostic or therapeutic). The patients were randomly allocated to one of the two intervention groups (A and B) at the time of endoscopy scheduling. All of the patients received regular instructions regarding gut-preparation at the time of appointment and were also provided with written clear instructions. A gastroenterologist provided information about endoscopy, including the exact preparation instructions and information on the importance of bowel preparation and the adverse effects of the agents used.

Depression Anxiety Stress Scale-42 was administered at baseline. Intervention group A (counselling group) was counselled about the procedure, complications and the post-procedure recovery phase and Group B (video group) was also counselled and shown a 5 minutes animated video of the respective procedure in separate room by gastroenterologist. Endoscopies were carried out by trained doctors (endoscopists) with a minimum experience of 1000 endoscopic procedures. Patients in both the groups were interviewed again after the intervention using Depression Anxiety Stress Scale-42.