Preoperative Fasting: Knowledge and Perceptions

ABSTRACTPREOPERATIVE PATIENT FASTING is an essential element of the patient preparation process, but patients may be fasting for excessive lengths of time.INVESTIGATORS AT ONE FACILITY used semi-structured interviews to explore the knowledge and beliefs of patients, nurses, and anesthesia care providers regarding the practice of preoperative patient fasting.FINDINGS INDICATE that some patients had excessive fasting times, and practitioners had erroneous perceptions about patient knowledge regarding the rationale for fasting and compliance with instructions. Clinicians expressed concern about the effects of excessive fasting but were reluctant to relax the policy.