Patient satisfaction and pre-operative anxiety in day-care laparoscopic surgery: Association with recovery outcomes

Day-care laparoscopic surgery prioritizes efficiency and safety, yet psychological determinants of recovery remain insufficiently integrated into outcome assessment. Therefore, it is of interest to evaluate pre-operative anxiety, post-operative satisfaction and objective recovery metrics in 130 adults undergoing elective ambulatory laparoscopic procedures. Higher pre-operative anxiety was significantly associated with delayed ambulation, increased post-operative pain and prolonged discharge readiness (p < 0.05), whereas higher satisfaction correlated with shorter discharge times (r = -0.34, p = 0.001). In multivariable analysis, both anxiety (β = +0.22, p = 0.002) and satisfaction (β = -0.29, p = 0.002) independently predicted discharge readiness after adjustment for age, sex and procedure duration. Thus, we show that psychological preparedness and patient satisfaction are independent determinants of ambulatory surgical recovery and should be incorporated into perioperative optimization pathways.