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Current Thoracic Surgery 2023 , Vol 8 , Issue 3
Did COVID-19 anxiety cause a delay in the patients’ decision to be operated on for lung malignancy?
Seda Kahraman Aydın1,Tiffany Melissa Ergin Onar1,Tevfik Ilker Akcam1,Ufuk Cagirici1,Ali Ozdil1
1Department of Thoracic Surgery, Ege University School of Medicine, Izmir, Turkey DOI : 10.26663/cts.2023.0022 Viewed : 1689 - Downloaded : 585 Background: With the COVID-19 pandemic, "corona anxiety and phobia" negatively affect people in various fields which can lead patients to delay even their lung cancer operations. It was investigated whether the reason was COVID-19 phobia in patients who wanted to postpone lung surgery, and it was aimed to evaluate the COVID-19 anxiety scores in these patients.

Materials and Methods: Between April 2020 and January 2022, the data of patients who were recommended to be operated on due to lung malignancy, but who reported that they wanted to postpone the surgery were analyzed retrospectively. The patients were contacted by phone and questioned whether the reasons for the postponement were the COVID-19 pandemic. The patients were evaluated in the context of the “Coronavirus Anxiety Scale (CAS)” and their anxiety scores and reasons for delay were analyzed with CAS scores.

Results: Of the 122 patients who were recommended to be operated on due to lung malignancy, 90 were operated on, while 32 patients (26.2%) postponed the operation. The mean surgery delay time was 11.59 ± 7.13 months, it was detected that the mean anxiety score was 2.47 ± 2.46 (0-9) points. The average anxiety score of those who answered “no” to the questionnaire was 0.79 points, those who answered “partially” had 2.69 points, and those who answered “yes” were 6.60 points. The CAS score was significantly higher in patients who reported that they postponed their surgeries mainly due to COVID-19 (p < 0.001).

Conclusions: Higher levels of coronavirus anxiety were detected in patients who reported that they postponed lung surgery due to COVID-19. Keywords : coronaphobia, coronavirus anxiety, delay, lung cancer, surgical treatment