THE RELATIONSHIP OF SOCIAL SUPPORT TO ATTITUDES TOWARD AND PSYCHOSOCIAL ADJUSTMENT AFTER AMBULATORY SURGERY.
Contributors: Indiana University School of Nursing.
Published: 1993
Number of pages: 206
Subjects: Health Sciences, Nursing.; Health Sciences, Medicine and Surgery.; Psychology, Social.
Description: An exploratory study utilizing a before-after research design was conducted to determine the relationship of social support to psychosocial adjustment and attitudes after ambulatory surgery. Adult ambulatory surgery patients (N = 100) were interviewed by telephone.

Social support was operationalized by the Perioperative Instrument of Supportive Behaviors (Lucas, 1985) to determine the subjects' perceptions of social support received and relative importance of that support during three specific time periods within the perioperative period: preoperative, intraoperative, and postoperative. Psychosocial adjustment was measured utilizing 'Section V' of the Psychosocial Adjustment to Illness Inventory-SR (Derogatis, 1979). Attitudes were measured using Osgood's semantic differential technique (Osgood, Suci, & Tannebaum, 1957) pre- and postoperatively. General Information regarding demographics, previous medical history, a financial index, and the presence of physical symptoms postoperatively were also collected.

Results indicated that the ambulatory surgery patients, in general, were in good health preoperatively. They perceived themselves as receiving adequate social support throughout the perioperative period, and social support was important to them. While few subjects experienced many physical symptoms postoperatively, three symptoms occurred the most frequently: pain, swelling and difficulty moving. Difficulty with work and household related tasks resulted in a more negative attitude postoperatively.

Findings suggest that an individual's attitude toward the experience of ambulatory surgery is an important consideration for health care providers. Positive attitudes preoperatively were associated with psychosocial adjustment and more positive attitudes postoperatively. Financial considerations, in terms of problems incurred when family members take time off work for the surgery, resulted in problems with psychosocial adjustment.

Backward and forward stepwise elimination procedures using multiple regression identified variables that predicted psychosocial adjustment and attitudes after ambulatory surgery. Two variables--positive attitudes before surgery and social support received during the postoperative period--were found to be significant in predicting 17% of the variance in psychosocial adjustment. Four variables--positive attitudes before surgery, not staying overnight in the hospital, little difficulty with tasks after surgery, and social support received during the intraoperative period--were found to predict 48% of the variance in subjects' attitudes after ambulatory surgery.
Notes: Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 54-09, Section: B, page: 4599.

Thesis (D.N.S.)--INDIANA UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF NURSING, 1993.

School code: 0815.