3.3 | Comparison of Pain, anxiety, and quality of life scores before/during/after surgery
Pain before and during surgical intervention was not statistically different (p=0,200).
VAS score after nail surgery was statistically significantly lower compared to preoperative and during the surgical procedure (p = 0.021 p <0.001). STAI-S score after nail surgery was found to be statistically significantly higher than preoperative STAI-S score (p = 0.003) (Table 2).
The results of the Skindex-16 scale applied to evaluate how the ingrown nail requiring surgery affect the quality of life are summarized in Table 3.
The preoperative VAS score was statistically significantly negatively correlated with the preoperative STAI-S scale (p = 0.048). The VAS score during surgery revealed a positive statistically significant relationship with the postoperative VAS score (p <0.001). The evaluation of the correlation between the scales is shown in Table 4.
VAS score(before-during and after) did not differ significantly regarding age, sex, education level and socioeconomic situation of the patients.
The mean preoperative STAI-S score of male gender was statistically significantly higher than the female gender (p = 0.021). There was a statistically significant difference in STAI-T scores before surgery in accordance to age (p = 0.001), the mean preoperative STAI-T score between 31-50 years was statistically significantly higher than the other age groups (p = 0.002 p = 0.006 p = 0.009) (Tablo 5). The preoperative STAI-S scores of those who had undergone dermatological surgery were statistically significantly lower than those who did not have a history of previous dermatological surgery (p = 0.015). The preoperative STAI-S scores of patients who had previous nail surgery were statistically significantly lower than those without previous nail surgery (p = 0.018). Source of information about the surgical process (internet/social media/video) did not affect the anxiety level of nail surgery (Table 6).
The mean waiting time for the nail surgical appointment in patients with ingrown nails was 127.87±85.26 hours. There was a weak correlation between the waiting time of the patients and their mean STAI-S and STAI-T scores (r=0.208 p=0.157 and r=0.256 p=0.079). The mean waiting time of females was 109.94±56.63 and males was 139.23±98.46 hours. Also, there was no weak correlation between the waiting time of females and males and their STAI-S and STAI-T scores. (r=0,325 p=0,188 and r=0,162 and p=0,391).
In the sociodemographic characteristics of the patients, a statistically significant difference was found only in the age groups in functional Skindex-16 levels (p = 0.026). The functional Skindex-16 levels of the 31-50 years age group were statistically significantly higher than that of the patients above 20 years of age (p = 0.036) (Table 7).