Objectives This study aim to evaluate patient’s perception about anesthesiologists’ job roles and investigate their expectations for anesthesia care.Methods We designed a self-administered questionnaire for this cross-sectional survey study and delivered questionnaire forms to adult in-patients who were scheduled for elective surgery before pre-operative anesthetic visit the day before surgery.We collected information of respondents’ demographic data,education background,health literacy and previous experience of anesthesia,perception of anesthesiologist’s job,the expectation on anesthesia care.Descriptive analyses,χ^2 test and multiple linear regression analysis were used for data analysis.Results Of 550 participants,521(94.7%)completed the questionnaire.In these respondents,335 (64.3%) considered anesthesiology as an independent medical discipline,225 (43.2%) believed that anesthesiology department was an independent clinical department,and 243 (46.6%) recognized anesthesiologists as qualified doctors.Only 21.5% of them knew that anesthesiologists also work in the intensive care unit and 26.9% of them knew that anesthesiologists also work in pain clinic as well.Younger patients (β=-0.044,P<0.001),those with higher education (β=1.200,P<0.001),or with better health literacy (β=0.781,P=0.005) had significant more knowledge about the job roles of anesthesiologists.Most patients demanded pre-anesthetic visit (80.5%),expected availability of preoperative anesthetic clinic (74.1%),wished to receive more information about anesthesia (91.3%) and anesthesiologist (77.4%).Conclusions Patients’ perception about anesthesiologists might be limited.Efforts should be made on education about anesthesia,especially for elderly patients and those under-educated patients.Preoperative anesthetic clinic is expected by most in-patients.
