Abstract
Purpose :
To determine the difference between stress parameters (subjective and objective) per surgical experience degree.
Methods :
The surgeons were classified in two groups according to their experience: “Experts” comprehended by physicians affiliated to the retina service who had an experience of more than 50 macular surgeries; “fellows” formed by second year retina subspecialist who had an experience of less than 50 macular surgeries. Prior to surgery, the surgeons answered the presurgical STAI questionnaire; then, they were delivered a polar chest strap which was synchronized to the HRV Elite app. When the surgical procedure was concluded, the evaluated surgeon answered a postsurgical STAI questionnaire no later than 15 minutes after surgery. Statistical analysis was made using Student-t distribution for independent samples with 2-tailed significance and p <0.05.
Results :
The analysis of the minimum heart rate did not show statistically significant differences. Maximum heart rate was statistically significant (p=0.02). During the subjective stress test, some significant differences among the two groups in the “presurgical state” (p=0.03) and the “postsurgical state” (p=0.01) were found.
Conclusions :
The surgeon’s experience was reflected showing a difference between the subjective and the objective stress. In both groups, the subjective stress level decreased when the surgery was concluded.
This is an abstract that was submitted for the 2017 ARVO Annual Meeting, held in Baltimore, MD, May 7-11, 2017.