Hospital stress and patient reports of pain and physical status.
The Hospital Stress Rating Scale was used to measure stress due to the experience of hospitalization for 535 medical and surgical patients in a community hospital. Patients were also asked to rate the pain they experienced on a pain thermometer, and a recovery inventory was used to score patient self-reports of their physical status, both during hospitalization and subsequent to discharge. With statistical control for patient characteristics correlated with self-reports of pain and physical status, associations between hospital stress and these variables were observed. Patients scoring high in hospital stress tended to report more pain, lower physical status during hospitalization, and less improvement after discharge than patients scoring low in hospital stress.
D000328:Adult; D000367:Age Factors; D001294:Attitude to Health; D001794:Blood Pressure; D005069:Evaluation Studies as Topic; D005260:Female; D006339:Heart Rate; D006760:Hospitalization; D006769:Hospitals, General; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008404:Massachusetts; D008875:Middle Aged; D010146:Pain / Q000523:psychology*; D010555:Personality Inventory; D013315:Stress, Psychological