The Subjective Pre-, Intra-, and Postoperatively Experiences of Patients Undergoing Cataract Surgery.

Assessment of types and intensity of unpleasant experiences pre-, intra-, and postoperatively in the patients undergoing cataract surgery, using especially designed questionnaire. Strategic aim: formulation of algorithm and modification of perioperative approach to patient qualified to undergo phacoemulsification procedure.

Untreated cataract - the most common reason for an operation in the world - leads to continual decrease in vision, eventually may be the cause of blindness. This condition always requires surgical intervention that involves phacoemulsification with intraocular lens implantation. The procedure takes short amount of time and is performed using topical anaesthesia. Phacoemulsification can be characterised as highly efficient and safe. Besides that, it is still not free from burdens to the patient: causing increased stress levels and anxiety, discomfort or pain, and other symptoms, as surgery is performed on fully conscious and alert patients. Despite, there's lots of research concentrating on patient's quality of life, with different health conditions, the subject of patient's experiences during cataract surgery hasn't been yet fully investigated and explored. The aim of the study will be an assessment of types and intensity of unpleasant experiences pre-, intra-, and postoperatively in the patients undergoing cataract surgery, using especially designed questionnaire. Strategic aim: formulation of algorithm and modification of perioperative approach to patient qualified to undergo phacoemulsification procedure. The prospective questionnaire data will be collected for 200 adults: women and men, that were qualified for cataract surgery in Ophthalmology Department of the Białystok University Clinical Hospital, as an elective surgery with patients being qualified based on specific qualifying criteria. Based on the questionnaire, that have 128 detailed questions, sociodemographic characteristic of patients will be created, and they will be divided into two groups (I and II) depending whether they are undergoing first or second eye surgery. Juxtaposition of different patients experiences and sensations, with their sociodemographic characteristics, as an implication, will lead to identification of factors that cause surgical procedure to be described either as positive or negative experience. The questionnaire is facilitated also selection of the most significant and frequent reasons for dissatisfaction.