An Observational Study on the Intraoperative Awareness Following General Anesthetic Drugs

Objective: To determine intraoperative awareness and estimate the factors associated with intraoperative awareness. Methods: An observational cross-sectional study was carried out after approval from the institutional ethical committee. The duration of the study is 2 months. After completion of the surgical procedure, anesthesia was reversed, and there was an adequate return of consciousness. The patients were interviewed about their surgery using the modified form of the Brice questionnaire. After the questionnaire was completed, it was analyzed, and patients were categorized into either having definite awareness, possible awareness, or no awareness. Results: It was observed that out of 90 patients operated on under general anesthesia, eight reported having remembered something under general anesthesia. Out of eight patients, two were found to have definite awareness, and the occurrence of definite awareness was calculated to be 2.22%. Six patients were categorized under possible awareness, and the occurrence of possible awareness was estimated to be 6.6% in our study. Conclusion: The occurrence of intraoperative awareness was estimated to be 8.8%, including definite and possible awareness under general anesthesia. Finally, we conclude that intraoperative awareness might be due to the inadequate depth of general anesthesia given to the patients. The dose of general anesthetic drugs was not maintained based on its minimum alveolar concentration (MAC).