Discussion
psychological illness, anxiety, pain
The study investigated the impact of an endoscopic procedure on anxiety, fear and acute stress levels in patients undergoing the procedure. The participants were provided detailed information about the relevant procedure coupled with psychological counselling with or without visual aid in the form of a short-animated video of the endoscopy procedure (a psycho-intervention).In the present study, results revealed that there was a significant post-intervention scores difference in visual aid and no visual aid condition with respect to anxiety, stress and fear i.e. video group has significantly reduced anxiety, stress and fear as compared to no-video group. This can be related to a study done by Murugesan et al. who reported a statistically significant difference between video or verbal information group after endoscopy i.e. information provided by video helps reduce anxiety of the patients [Present study findings revealed that gender, chronic GI symptoms, concern over seniority of endoscopist were emerged as significant predictors of stress. This can be related to the findings of a study which showed that gender was a significant predictor of anxiety prior to endoscopy [It was also found in the present study that patients who were fully satisfied of briefing of endoscopy procedure were less stressed and feared after visual aid intervention as compared to those who were partly satisfied. Umezawa et al. reported that patients who received relaxing visual distraction reported significantly higher post-procedure satisfactory levels as compared to patients who didn’t receive relaxation method [In the present study, results also revealed that age, history of psychological illness, endoscope causes pain and damage to internal organs did not emerge as significant predictors. This can be supported by a study done by Volkan et al. who reported no significant difference between group whom procedure was explained in detailed and those who were briefly explained in terms of age [