Design and Methods. This cross-sectional comparative study employed an online questionnaire survey to collect data.

Participants. The snowball sampling method was used to recruit a convenience sample of 1092 adult participants in Turkey.

Results. The participants were following the agenda on COVID-19, their perceptions were alerted, their anxiety level was quite high and they were well-informed about precautions. More women than men responded positively to the assumption that alcohol and smoking raise the effect severity for COVID-19 disease. Women in relation to men were more undecided about the real danger of COVID-19 as it is told. The anxiety that appears from the fear to be infected with the virus or die because of COVID-19 was higher in women than men. Everyday checks for COVID-19 symptoms were more relevant for higher school graduates than for respondents with university education and for the youngest group of respondents than for older ones. Perceptions and precautions of higher educated individuals were higher and more correct. A larger proportion of persons of older age (46–72 years) was more sure that COVID-19 was a disease which more severely manifests in men compared with women and less believed in a statement that COVID-19 disease was a political game controlled by developed countries in relation to other age groups. The youngest respondents ignored the fact that this pandemic was a wrath of God against corrupted communities at a larger extent than the older participants of the study.

Conclusion. There are significant differences in the perception of healthy adults from Turkey towards the new coronavirus disease, their anxiety caused from this and precautions that are applied for prevention of the infection in relation to their gender, age and education level. The findings of this study suggest that educational precautions should be taken for individuals with lower education and precautions for mental health promotion should be taken regarding women. Policymakers and healthcare professionals should announce the confirmed scientific information on COVID-19 pandemic to the public to prevent information pollution.

Methods. The interventional study was performed at the Hospital of Lithuanian University of Health Sciences Kauno klinikos, the Department of Cardiac, Thoracic and Vascular Surgery and the Department of Cardiology. The data were collected between June 2019 and February 2020. The intervention group (n = 109) received nurse-led preoperative education 1–3 days before the surgery. The patients in the control group (n = 109) received ordinary education provided by the staff of the hospital: surgeons, anaesthesiologists and nurses. The patients’ anxiety level was assessed with Cardiac Anxiety Questionnaire (CAQ) developed by Eifert (2000).

Results. Postoperative CAQ-Fear, CAQ-Avoidance, CAQ-Attention and CAQ-Total Score decreased significantly in the patients of the intervention group who participated in preoperative nurse-led education (P < 0.05). There was no significant decrease of scores of any anxiety subscale in the patients of the control group (P > 0.05); moreover, the scores of anxiety subscale CAQAttention significantly increased after surgery among the control group patients (P = 0.007). It was found that gender, smoking habit and the average duration of smoking experience did not associate with the level of postoperative anxiety in the patients after coronary artery bypass grafting; age and education had a very weak correlation with the anxiety level of the study sample (r < 0.2; P < 0.05).

Conclusions. Nurse-led preoperative education reduced anxiety in the patients after coronary artery bypass grafting significantly. Gender, smoking habits and smoking duration of the participants were not associated with the level of postoperative anxiety but age and education had a very weak significant (positive and negative) correlation with the patients’ anxiety domains. Before surgery, the patients felt moderate anxiety and, in reference to our study results, preoperative education has to be necessarily included in clinical practice.