Posttraumatic stress disorder symptoms in children exposed to circumcision under general or local anesthesia

Abstract

The aim of this study was to investigate the impact of general versus localanesthesia on the Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) symptoms aftercircumcision. Of the 134 consecutive children (7-12 years of age) whounderwent circumcision, 71 had general anesthesia (GA) and 63 had localanesthesia (LA). All participants completed the child depression inventory(CDI), State Anxiety (SA) and Trait Anxiety (TA) inventories, and ChildhoodAnxiety Sensitivity Index (CASI) before the operation as well as the ChildPosttraumatic Stress Reaction Index (CPSRI) one month after the operation.The CDI, CASI and TA scores of the children were similar in both groups,while the SA scores of the LA group were higher than those in GA group(p