Effect of Showing Angiograms to Patients After Elective Percutaneous Coronary Intervention on Anxiety and Illness Perception: A Randomized, Blinded, Controlled Clinical Trial

Background As an invasive modality, a coronary angioplasty may cause a great deal of anxiety in patients and affect their mental health and general well-being. Accordingly, we sought to assess whether showing patients the video of their elective percutaneous coronary intervention (angiogram) could affect their illness perception and anxiety level. Materials and methods In this randomized clinical trial, the patients undergoing angioplasty, were randomly divided into two groups of 30 patients. Angiograms were shown only to the intervention group postprocedurally. A checklist comprising demographic data and clinical presentations as well as the Beck anxiety questionnaire and the Brief Illness Perception Questionnaire (BIPQ) was completed for each patient immediately after the intervention and one month later. The differences in the patients' anxiety level and illness perception were analyzed. Results In the intervention group, the mean anxiety score before and after watching the angiograms was 34.26 ± 8.1 and 24.4 ± 8.56, respectively. While in the control group, the score before and after angioplasty was 34.46 ± 9.34 and 26.6 ± 9.44, respectively. Thus, watching angiograms led to a significant decrease in the anxiety score in the intervention group, whereas there was no such difference in the control group. There was also a considerable difference in the anxiety score between the two groups. Further, there was a significant decrease in the BIPQ score of the intervention group after watching the angioplasty videos. Conclusion Educating cardiovascular patients about diagnostic and therapeutic procedures may confer such good outcomes as alleviated anxiety, enhanced satisfaction, and ultimately, fewer anxiety-related complications.