Knowledge and attitudes of Pakistani women towards anaesthesia techniques for caesarean section

To assess knowledge and attitudes of Pakistani women towards different options of anaesthesia techniques for caesarean section and also to identify their sources of information about them.

A total of 410 women scheduled for elective caesarean section were enrolled after informed written consent in this hospital based cross sectional survey. The women were interviewed preferably in Urdu (national) language according to structured pre coded questionnaire by one of the investigators and the sequence of questions was strictly followed. This survey included pertinent questions to assess knowledge and attitudes of our women towards choices of anaesthesia techniques. The questionnaire was filled according to their responses and submitted to the research assistant of the department on the same day.

It was seen that 82.4% of the study population was aware of the existence of anaesthesia techniques however, 48% of women preferred general anaesthesia, 33% regional anaesthesia while 18% were not sure of what to choose. Reasons of preferring general anaesthesia mainly were previous general anaesthesia experience and fear of being awake and hearing noises during surgery. Regional anaesthesia was refused mainly due to their concerns about backache, headache and inadequate anaesthesia.

This survey showed that Pakistani women are well aware about the existence of anaesthesia techniques however they do reveal lack of knowledge about their risks and benefit leading to high refusal rate of regional anaesthesia. Anaesthetists were seen as a major source of information.