The Effect of Benson Relaxation on the Anxiety of Patients under Radial Angiography: A Randomized Clinical Trial

Angiography is the gold standard test for the diagnosis of coronary artery disease; however, more than 82% of patients have stress and anxiety before they undergo angiography, which significantly effects the diagnostic results. One of the common complications of the angiography method through the radial artery is the occurrence of arterial spasm that is seen more in patients with severe anxiety. The current researchers believe that using Benson relaxation is effective in reducing the patient’s anxiety.
This study was designed to evaluate the Benson relaxation method in patients undergoing radial angiography.
This study was a clinical trial, which was performed on 60 candidate patients undergoing coronary angiography by radial method at Baqiyatallah Hospital during year 2017 (N = 60). The samples were randomly allocated to two groups, intervention and control. The information gathering tools were demographic questionnaire, the Beck Anxiety Inventory (BAI), and hemodynamic variables checklist. Data analysis was done with the SPPSS V16 software using Kolmogorov - Smirnov test, Mann - Whitney test, and paired - t test.
The results showed a significant difference between the anxiety of the patients before and after the intervention in each group (P Benson’s relaxation method can be effective in reducing anxiety in angiography candidate patients. Accordingly, it may also be effective in reducing the occurrence of radial artery spasm.