The Relationship between Preoperative Educational Session and Anxiety Level among Women Undergoing Cesarean Section: A Scoping Review

Context: Anxiety is felt in women undergoing elective cesarean section. In obstetric patients, literature has reported a higher level of preoperative anxiety than the general surgical population. One of the commonest surgical procedures in obstetrics is Caesarean section (CS). Preoperative anxiety has been described as being associated with several adverse physiological and psychological effects. Aim: This review aimed to determine the relationship between preoperative educational sessions and anxiety levels among women undergoing cesarean section. Methods: The search strategy of this study relies on some of the electronic bibliographic databases under the Medicine, Nursing, and Health Sciences departments. Various databases have been used to include different perspectives in the findings, CINAHL, Ovid MEDLINE, Pub Med, and Embase databases used to collect primary articles for this study. Results: The current review of the literature included seven quantitative studies that fulfill the inclusion criteria. The included studies revealed the intervention used as mental health training (one study), video is used in three studies, and health instruction in five studies. Two studies used both video and health instruction. In terms of the effect of preoperative sessions on anxiety level, four out of seven studies reported a decrease in the anxiety level. In comparison, the remaining three studies reported a non-significant educational intervention effect in decreasing the women’s anxiety. Conclusion: Most of the reviewed studies indicated that preoperative education intervention could positively impact anxiety levels among women undergoing CS. This makes the reviewed theme open for further randomized control intervention studying.