No evidence of long-term PTSD risk in patients with awareness during surgery

Patients with confirmed episodes of awareness during anaesthesia and surgery don’t seem to be at increased risk of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) or other problems with psychosocial well-being at long-term follow-up, reports a study.

‘We found no indication that intraoperative awareness with recall had any long-term effects on patients’ psychosocial outcome,’ concludes the new research by Dr Tanja Laukkala of the Centre for Military Medicine in Helsinki, Finland. Anesthesiologists ‘should respond to the findings