Impact of preoperative surgical anxiety on postoperative surgical recovery among surgical patients: Role of surgical coping.

Objective: To examine the moderating impact of surgical coping in the relationship between pre-operative surgical anxiety and post-operative surgical recovery.

Methods: The descriptive cross-sectional study was conducted at the surgical department of various hospitals across Punjab, including the Allied Hospital, Faisalabad, District Headquarters Teaching Hospital, Sargodha, Jinnah Hospital, Lahore, and Margalla Institute of Health Sciences, Rawalpindi, Pakistan, from May 1, 2018, to May 1, 2019. It comprised surgical patients of either gender aged 18-60 years. Data was collected using the Amsterdam Pre-operative Anxiety and Information Scale, the Surgical Recovery Scale, and the Coping with Surgical Stress Scale. Moderation analysis was applied using PROCESS Macro 3.2.

Results: Of the 200 patients, 85(42.5%) were males and 115(57.5%) were females. The overall mean age was 36.34±12.64 years. Threat avoidance (p<0.001) and information-seeking (p<0.001) coping strategies moderated the relationship between surgical anxiety and surgical recovery of the patients.

Conclusions: The use of appropriate coping strategy for prompt recovery post-surgery is critical.