The Effect of Comedy Film on Preoperative Anxiety and Postoperative Pain Level in Abdominal Surgery Patients

Whether it is major surgery or minor surgery, preoperative anxiety is observed in all patients in the preoperative period. A high level of anxiety causes many physiological and psychological problems in the body and causes an increase in sympathetic and endocrine system stimuli. Among the physiological and psychological problems seen, many conditions such as recovery time, quality of life, health care expenditures, vital signs and well-being are negatively affected. Therefore, many applications can be used to reduce the level of anxiety before surgery. With humor, which is one of them, the anxiety levels of the patients can be reduced and they can manage their stress management better. In addition to reducing the level of anxiety before the operation, the experience of post-operative pain is one of the important problems experienced by the patients. Pain complaints are a general problem in the postoperative period in abdominal surgeries. The usefulness of using supportive complementary and alternative therapies in addition to pharmacological treatments in postoperative pain management is emphasized in the literature. Among these non-pharmacological treatments, it is stated that humor and laughter increase tolerance to pain and have positive effects on mood. Humor and laughter not only increase pain tolerance, but also reduce fear, anxiety and anger, and help lower the level of anxiety. Therefore, in order to use the healing effects of humor, our study was planned to determine the effect of watching comedy films on the level of anxiety and postoperative pain in patients undergoing abdominal surgery.