Rj. Mahajan et al., ARE PATIENTS WHO UNDERGO OPEN-ACCESS ENDOSCOPY MORE ANXIOUS ABOUT THEIR PROCEDURES THAN PATIENTS REFERRED FROM THE GI CLINIC, The American journal of gastroenterology, 91(12), 1996, pp. 2505-2508
Objectives: Our academic hospital center operates an open access endos
copy service that allows referring physicians to directly schedule pat
ients for outpatient esophagogastroduodenoscopy and colonoscopy withou
t having them first seen in the GI clinic. Although patients from the
GI clinic have an opportunity to meet the endoscopist and discuss thei
r procedures directly beforehand, patients who are scheduled to underg
o endoscopy through our open access service receive only a brief telep
hone call from a GI fellow or nurse that is made to screen for contrai
ndications to the procedure and to give instructions. Our objective wa
s to find out whether patients who used our open access service were m
ore anxious about their procedures than those referred from the GI cli
nic. Methods: On arrival to our endoscopy center, consecutive patients
from the open access service (n = 142) and the GI clinic (n = 85) com
pleted a questionnaire that included three measures of anxiety. After
completion of the endoscopic procedure, the attending endoscopist rate
d patient cooperation. Patients also completed a phone questionnaire o
n the day after their procedures assessing their experience with endos
copy. Results: We found no difference between patients from the open a
ccess service and those from the GI clinic in any of the measures of p
reprocedure anxiety, in scores measuring cooperation during procedures
, or in patient ratings of their experience with endoscopy as assessed
on the day after procedures. Conclusions: Patients who used our open
access service were no more anxious about their procedures or less coo
perative during them than patients first seen in the GI clinic. In bot
h groups, procedure-related anxiety was decreased in patients who had
previously undergone endoscopy.