Does Anxiety in Children on the Day of Surgery Impact Compliance in the Ophthalmology Clinic?

There are many studies demonstrating pediatric anxiety from a surgical experience leading to postoperative maladaptive behaviors such as nightmares, separation anxiety, eating problems, and increased fear of doctors. There is a significant amount of research looking at day of surgery anxiety and pain in children and possible modifiers. Very little work has explored the effect of maladaptive behaviors with follow up physician visits. Strabismus surgery is particularly important as children require early and regular follow up assessments after surgery for optimal outcome. These assessments are meticulous and require good patient cooperation in order to obtain useful information for the pediatric ophthalmologist.

The study hypothesis is that pediatric patients with increased levels of anxiety on the day of surgery, in particular at point of anesthetic induction, will demonstrate decreased compliance with assessment in ophthalmology clinic postoperatively. The investigators expect this decrease in compliance will be evident based on changes seen on the ophthalmology clinic compliance scores generated pre and postoperatively.

The proposed study will be a prospective cross sectional study. Investigators will be measuring compliance in the ophthalmology clinic pre and postoperative and relating any changes in compliance with anxiety levels on the day of surgery.