New research on this anesthetic awareness called "accidental awareness during general anesthesia" has found that there are deep psychological repercussions that result from this traumatic experience. A study published in Anaesthesia found that out of a patient population pool of over 3 million patients who received general anesthesia in the United Kingdom and Ireland, one in every 19,600 of them woke up during surgery. Numbers calculated in different studies in the United States found a greater frequency of one in 1,000 patients. In the new study, the patients self-reported which could askew the numbers.
Anesthetic awareness tended to happen more often in surgeries where the patient received paralytics with the anesthesia. Because they could not move, there was no way to communicate with the doctor.
The study also found that the patient in general woke up either before or after the actual procedure and not mid-incision.
According to CNN, "patients described a range of sensations, including choking, paralysis, pain, hallucinations, and near-death experiences. Most episodes were short-lived, with 75% of them lasting under five minutes."
Almost half of all patients who experienced anesthetic awareness suffered from psychological effects like PTSD and depression. The study found that even the short-lived episodes could adversely impact the patient.
