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Title: Perceived Ambiguity and Stress in Illness.
Statement of the Problem: The control of psychological stress experienced by hospitalized patients is considered to be an important factor in the process of recovery from illness. A focus in nursing research has been on efforts to reduce the patient's stress. Yet the critical problem in analyzing stress in illness and hospitalization, namely identifying the processes and conditions that produce different stress reactions, as not been addressed. The purpose this investigation was to explore the role of perceived ambiguity is a judgement about an event or situation. A situation is judged as ambiguous when it cannot be adequately structured or categorized because sufficient clues are lacking.
Subjects: One hundred systematically selected medical patients from a V.A. hospital in the Los Angeles area served as subjects. Design: The Mishel Ambiguity in Illness Scale plus the Hospital Stress Rating Scale (Volicer, 1977) were administered to all subjects on their third day of hospitalization. Medical patients were selected as this population is likely to demonstrate ambiguity.
Data Collection and Analysis: The Pearson product-moment correlation was used to specify the relationship between ambiguity and stress. Correlations were run on scores on the MAIS, its two factors, the HSRS, and its eight factors.
Major Results: Ambiguity showed a strong relationship to stress (r = .35, p <.001). Both factors of the MAIS correlated significantly with stress, although factor 1 of the MAIS showed the stronger relationship. The stress factor of lack of information has the strongest relationship to ambiguity (p < .001). Of the remaining seven stress factors, the total MAIS and its factor 1 showed significant relationship with 5 (p <.01, p <.05) and a borderline relationship (p <.10) with the other two stress factors.
Conclusions: This study indicates that the patient's uncertainty or lack of clarity concerning events in illness, treatment, and hospitalization are associated with the stress experienced during Hospitalization. These indings provide initial data on the role of one cognitive variable influencing the patient's experience. Further study is required to clarify this relationship as findings imply that this connection is not unqualified.
Source: Fifth Midwest Nursing Research Conference Proceedings
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