 Oxford – The thought of waking up during general anesthesia while the surgeon is using the scalpel is just so disturbing that the risk of intraoperative awareness (AWR) is often overestimated by the general public. A survey conducted with the participation of all British anesthesiologists reveals just how rare these sorts of events are.
The National Audit Project 5 “Accidental awareness during general anesthesia†(AWR) included the two societies RCoA (Royal College of Anesthetist) and AAGBI (Association of Anesthetists of Great Britain and Ireland) and all anesthesia specialists in the United Kingdom in order to record all events of AWR in 2011.
More than 80% of interrogated doctors have filled out the questionnaire revealing an incident  AWR in of 1 in 15414 or 0.0065 %.
This study is by far the largest study ever conducted on this subject and is considered to reveal credible information. Reassuring is that only 30% of the AWR events occurred during the actual surgery. Another 47% were in the induction phase and 23% in the recovery phase.
Source of the article here
