Uncertainty and Anxiety of Hysterectomy Patients During Hospitalization

Abstract

Uncertainty and anxiety are common responses among patients undergoing surgery (Auerbach & Kilmann, 1977; Drellich & Bieber, 1958; Spielberger, 1972; Webb & Wilson-Barnett, 1983). Each response is associated with the type of procedure being faced as well as with the meaning that the removed organ has for that individual. For example, hysterectomy patients experience uncertainty and anxiety about what the operation entails and the effect of the removal of the uterus on sexual functioning (Drellich & Bieber, 1958). Even though uncertainty and anxiety are common, it is unclear how these responses change over the course of hospitalization or how these responses are related. Therefore, the purpose of this study was twofold: first, to investigate the course of uncertainty and anxiety over the hospital stay and secondly, to examine the relationship between uncertainty and anxiety at different points during hospitalization. We elected to answer these questions with the responses from hysterectomy patients. Uncertainty The study of uncertainty has been closely linked to ambiguity. For example, uncertainty has been equated to or used to operationalize situational ambiguity (Norton, 1975). Folkman, Schaefer and Lazarus (1979) differentiate between ambiguity and uncertainty and then describe the relationship between them. Ambiguity refers to lack of clarity of meaning in the environmental display. Uncertainty is confusion about what the environmental display means. Folkman et al. (1979) conceptualized uncertainty as arising from ambiguous factors within the situation and from factors within the individual, such as a person's own distinctive agenda, beliefs, and abilities. They further delineate four types of uncertainty: event, temporal, outcome, and control uncertainty. Event uncertainty occurs when the time of the event is known but the possibility of its occurrence varies, whereas temporal uncertainty occurs when the time of the event is