Effect of nursing interventions on anxiety and vital signs in patients undergoing endoscopy: a randomized clinical trial study

Gastrointestinal diseases are common disorders for which endoscopy is one of the most important diagnostic procedures and due to the invasive nature of these procedures can cause fear and anxiety in patients.. Stress before an endoscopy procedure will lead to reducing the trend of patients and increasing the endoscopy time. This study was aimed to evaluate the effect of nursing interventions on anxiety and some vital signs in patients undergoing endoscopy. This clinical trial semi-experimental study was carried out with participation of 80 patients undergoing endoscopy referred to Ayatollah Taleghani hospital of Urmia in 2012. Samples were selected by convenient sampling and allocated randomly to either experimental (n=40) or control groups (n=40). The experimental group received nursing interventions before endoscopy and endoscopy day. Anxiety level, blood pressure and pulse rate were measured in both groups before intervention and on endoscopy day (immediately before the procedure). The results showed that the two groups were homogeneous in terms of demographic variables and there was not a significant difference between two groups (P>0.05). The mean score of anxiety, blood pressure and pulse rate in intervention group decreased after nursing interventions and immediately before endoscopy and this difference was statistically significant (P=0.01). Nursing interventions for patients undergoing endoscopy can reduce their anxiety before performing this procedure. So, this method can be used as a non-pharmacological method for reducing anxiety in patients before performing invasive procedures.