Preparing adult patients for cardiac catheterization: informational treatment and coping style interactions.

Objective: To examine the interacting effects of coping style and type of preparatory informational treatment on cardiac catheterization patient anxiety.

Design: Pretest-posttest randomized control group design.

Setting: Canadian, university-affiliated, large urban hospital.

Subjects: 145 adult patients (107 men and 38 women) scheduled for their first cardiac catheterization. Age range was from 34 to 78 years. Mean educational level was 10.72 years.

Outcome Measures: Subject's coping style (monitoring [information seeking] or blunting [information avoiding]) was assessed by means of Miller's Behavioral Style Scale. Subject's anxiety was assessed by means of Speilberger's A-Trait and A-State Inventory.

Intervention: After coping style assessment, monitors and blunters were randomly assigned to receive one of three preparatory informational treatments: (1) videotaped procedural modeling information; (2) videotaped procedural-sensory modeling information; and (3) procedural-sensory information booklet.

Results: Subjects' anxiety was assessed before and after intervention (Time 1 and Time 2) and before and after catheterization (Time 3 and Time 4). Analysis of variance techniques applied to the anxiety data largely confirmed the hypothesized interaction between subjects' coping style and type of preparatory informational treatment. Monitors who received the procedural-sensory modeling video treatment and blunters who received the procedural modeling video treatment reported significant reductions in A-state anxiety at Time 2 and maintained that decrease at Time 3. In contrast, monitors and blunters who received the other preparatory informational treatments reported a significant increase in A-state anxiety or a nonsignificant change in A-state anxiety at Time 2 and Time 3. At Time 4 monitors and blunters in each of the treatment groups reported a significant decrease in A-state anxiety.

Conclusions: Two unexpected findings emerged from the study: (1) female monitors and blunters reported significantly higher A-state anxiety levels than their male counter-parts at preintervention, and (2) significant differences were observed among the preintervention A-state anxiety means of male monitors in the three preparatory treatment groups. These findings limit the conclusions that can be drawn from the study but provide direction for future research in the preparatory area.