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

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.

Inclusion criteria

• The criteria for inclusion required non complicated cataracts (NC1, NC2) according to The Lens Opacities Classification System III (LOCS III scale). Additional inclusion criteria were as follows: documented progression of best corrected visual acuity less than 0.6 according to Snellen notification
• patient agreement to participate in the study after informing them about the nature of the research

Exclusion criteria

• bilateral deafness that prevented any communication with the patient;
• no logical contact with the patient (mental disorders, senile dementia, etc.);
• any conditions that might complicate the surgery: post-inflammatory or post-traumatic cataract, chronic corneal disease and corneal opacity that prevent intraoperative vision, advanced disease macular degenerative, active inflammatory process, pregnancy, general steroid therapy.
• lack of patient consent to participate in the study.