Effect of diazepam on the sempatovagal balance and O2 saturation

Diazepam is an active ingredient of the drugs which is used in the treatment of the anxiety, insomnia, alcohol withdrawal, and muscle spasm. It has anxiolytic, sedative, muscle relaxant and memory weakening effects. Diazepam is also administrated before surgical operations that require only local anesthesia, to prevent possible anxiety. In this study, we aimed at assessing differences in anxiety levels of patients undergoing local anesthesia. Two groups of subjects with no prior history of psychological disorders were gathered to perform a comparison. One group was administered 5 mg of diazepam and the other was not. In this way, we tried to confirm and discuss whether administering subjects who will undergo local anesthesia in their treatment with diazepam is actually beneficial or not. ECG and SaO₂ signals of 16 patients who underwent coronary angiography operation at the Cardiology Center of Erciyes University (Kayseri, Turkey) were recruited. Recordings were done at three stages: one hour before, during, and one hour after the angiography test. Our preliminary results indicate that sempatovagal balance values of the group of with diazepam are greater than the other group and there are not differences in values of SaO₂ between two groups.