Which method, cardiac surgery or interventional catheter angiography, causes parents’ anxiety levels to worsen?

INTRODUCTION: As the high levels of parental, especially maternal, anxiety may result in some neurodevelopmental problems in their children, we aim to assess the anxiety levels of parents during the preprocedural period for different interventions.
METHODS: The study included a total of 131 participants, 73 of whom underwent catheter intervention while 58 of them underwent surgery. State-Trait Anxiety Inventory-2 (STAI-2) and The Beck Anxiety Inventory (BAI) were used. The participants were divided into 3 anxiety classes: mild, moderate, and severe, according to their BAI scores.
RESULTS: Although there were no significant differences between groups regarding the mean STAI-2 score, the mean BAI score was statistically significantly lower in the catheter interventional group than in the surgery group (p=0.002). In the total population, we demonstrated that BAI scores were significantly higher in parents with boys than in parents with girls (p=0.030). In a separate analysis, the BAI scores of parents with girls were not different in the surgery and catheter groups. However, the BAI scores of parents with boys were almost significantly higher in the surgery group than in the catheter group (p=0.064). As the distance between home and hospital increased, the probability of moderate or severe anxiety according to The BAI class increased only in the catheter group (p=0.017). However, the same was not seen in the surgery group.
DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION: The fact that parents whose children had catheter intervention had lower anxiety levels than those whose children had surgery, may guide the physicians regarding which procedure to choose.