# Should an Anesthesiologist Be Interested in the Patient’s Personality? Relationship Between Personality Traits and Preoperative Anesthesia Scales of Patients Enrolled for a Hip Replacement Surgery

## TL;DR

This study finds that patient personality traits like anxiety and neuroticism are linked to preoperative health classifications used by anesthesiologists.

## Contribution

The study introduces a novel approach by linking personality traits to preoperative anesthesia scales for hip replacement surgery patients.

## Key findings

- High trait anxiety correlates strongly with higher ASA classification (rs = 0.359; p < 0.001).
- Neuroticism significantly correlates with both ASA (rs = 0.264; p < 0.001) and Lee index (rs = 0.202; p = 0.044).
- A regression model using personality traits explained 34% of the variance in ASA scores.

## Abstract

Background: Preparing patients for surgery considers assessing the patient’s somatic health, for example by the American Society of Anesthesiology (ASA) scale or the Revised Cardiac Risk Index (RCRI), known as the Lee index. This process usually ignores mental functioning (personality and anxiety), which is known to influence health. The purpose of this study is to analyze the existence of a relationship between personality traits (the Big Five model and trait-anxiety) and anesthesia scales (ASA scale, Lee index) used for the preoperative evaluation of patients. Methods: The study group comprised 102 patients (59 women, 43 men) scheduled for hip replacement surgery. Patients completed two psychological questionnaires: the NEO-FFI (NEO Five Factors Inventory) and the X-2 STAI (State-Trait Anxiety Inventory) sheet. Next, the presence and possible strength of the relationship between personality traits and demographic and medical variables were analyzed using Spearman’s rho rank correlation coefficient. Results: Patients with a high severity of trait anxiety are classified higher on the ASA scale (rs = 0.359; p < 0.001). Neuroticism, defined according to the Big Five model, significantly correlates with scales of preoperative patient assessment: the ASA classification (rs = 0.264; p < 0.001) and the Lee index (rs = 0.202; p = 0.044). A hierarchical regression model was created to test the possibility of predicting ASA scores based on personality. It explained more than 34% of the variance and was a good fit to the data (p < 0.05). The controlled variables of age and gender accounted for more than 23% of the variance. Personality indicators (trait anxiety, neuroticism) additionally accounted for slightly more than 11% of the variance. Trait anxiety (Beta = 0.293) proved to be a better predictor than neuroticism (Beta = 0.054). Conclusions: These results indicate that inclusion of personality screening in the preoperative patient evaluation might help to introduce a more individualized approach to patients, which could result in better surgical outcomes.