Scaling the stressfulness of gynecological complaints.
The present study determines the amount of agreement among staff members of a gynecology service in assessing the stressfulness of various gynecological conditions, and the efficacy of these estimates in predicting stress symptomatology among patients. Subjects were 103 patients attending a gynecology clinic during a two month period. We found that the gynecological conditions could be consensually ranked according to stressfulness by staff of the gynecology service but assessments of the magnitude of the stress differed according to the sex and professional affiliation of the rater. Judgements of stressfulness did not predict the presence of certain kinds of emotional reactions among the patient group but the correlations were not high enough to warrant prediction for the individual case.
D000328:Adult; D005260:Female; D005831:Genital Diseases, Female / Q000523:psychology*; D006801:Humans; D011569:Psychiatric Status Rating Scales; D013315:Stress, Psychological