J Nurs Acad Soc.  1989 Apr;19(1):99-107.

Differences in the Characteristics of Hospital Stress between Medical and Surgical Patients

• Lee SW
• Ro YJ
• Kim TK

Abstract

This study explored differences in how medical and surgical patients compare on the degree of hospital stress and their subjective physical status. Subjects were 343 medical and surgical patients in five university hospitals in Seoul and Taegu. They responded to the Hospital Stress Rating Scale and a self-report on physical status. The controlled variables were age, education, number of previous hospitalkations and seriousness of the illness. Medical and surgical patient differences on nine factors of the hospital stres scale and nine areas of physical conditions were reported as follows edptored ; 1. 1) There was not a statistically significant difference at the .05 level in the total mean score for hospital stress between medical patients and surgical patients. 2) The mean score of the factor lack of information (M=2.308) for medical patients was higher than the mean score (M=2.064) of the surgical patients. 3) The mean scores of the factor of discomfort (M=2. 130), toss of independence (M=1.889) for surgical patients were higher than for medical patients. 2. 1) There was a statistically significant difference at the .05 level in the total mean score for physical status between medical patients and surgical patients. 2) The mean scores were lower in subjective physical status for surgical patients(S) than for medical patients (M) : stomach condition (S : M=2.8433, M : M=3.0-000), self-assistance(S : M=3.0373, M : M=3.4498), movement (S : M=2.6716, M : M=3.2392), interest in your surroundings (S : M=3.0522, M ; M=3.2632). 3. Patients scoring high on the subjective physical status such as sleep, appetite, stomach condition, bowel condition and urination states had higher scores in hospital stress than with patients scoring tow on those subjective physical status. The results suggest that subjective physical status might be on expression of hospital stress. Also patients with high scores in subjective physical statas might be predicted have a high level of stress on admission. And surgical patients had a higher level of hospital stress than medical patients.

MeSH Terms

Activities of Daily Living
Eating Disorders/psychology
Gastrointestinal Diseases/psychology
Humans
Inpatients/*psychology
*Internal Medicine
Korea
Patient Education as Topic
Patients/*psychology
Sleep Disorders/psychology
Stress, Psychological/*diagnosis/etiology
Surgical Procedures, Operative/*psychology
Urination Disorders/psychology