Abstract

The purpose of this descriptive correlational study was to understand and find the relationships among the degree of the stress, anxiety, and depression of pre-operational patients, and to describe strategies for pre-operational patient care through exact assessment. The Stress Inventory which was made by researcher, Spielberger's(1972) State-Trait Anxiety Inventory, and Beck's(1967) Depression Inventory were used as research instruments. Subjects were seventy-five patients who hospitalized in general hospital located in Seoul and Inchun. Data was collected from April 12th to April 24th 1998 using questionnaire. Data analysis consisted of Pearson correlation coefficiency, Multiple regression analysis, t-test, one-way ANOVA using SPSS PC+ program. The results were summarized as follows: 1. The average score for the stress was 73.87, for the state-anxiety was 57.05, for the trait-anxiety was 57.59, and for the depression was 37.41. The degree of stress, anxiety and depression were above moderate level. 2. The degree of pre-operational stress and anxiety(r=.692, p=.000), stress and depression (r=.644, p=.000), anxiety and depression (r=.647, p=.000) had significant relationships in statistically. 3. Pre-operational stress was significantly explained by anxiety and depression. 4. The relationships among general characteristics and stress, anxiety, and depression were significantly defferent in education and experience of operation. In conclusion, pre-operational stress, anxiety and depression had high relationships with each other. Because significant differences exist in degree of patients' pre-operational stress, anxiety, and depression on education and experience of operation, these characteristics are needed to be applicated in nursing intervention on pre-operational care. The importance of this study is that the stress inventory predict pre-operative anxiety and depression of patients, so it is valid instrument for mesuring pre-operational stress. I suggest that the necessity of studies involving physical, environmental, spiritual aspect, etc. include emotion aspect in mesuring the degree of stress. Because the effect of pre-medication was not controled in research design, I suggest that repeated studies are needed include the pre-medication, furthermore the studies which combine the self-report method and the physiological maker of mesuring the degree of stress are necessary for the future study.

• Keywords: Operational patient; Stress; Anxiety; Depression