Anxiety, information, interpersonal impacts, and adjustment to a stressful health care situation

Abstract

Forty patients scheduled for dental extraction surgery were given either specific or general preparatory information, and this information was presented in either a personalized or relatively impersonal fashion using nonverbal cues. Changes in state anxiety over the course of the experiment were accounted for by individual differences in the Dental Anxiety Scale. The most important determinant of adjustment during surgery was the congruence between specificity of information received and individual differences in preference for information as measured by the Information subscale of the Krantz Health Opinion Survey (KHOS; Krantz, Baum, & Wideman, 1980). Findings with the KHOS and the Dental Anxiety Scale are examples of the growing importance of situation-specific personality-trait measures. The finding that high levels of presurgery anxiety are associated with poor adjustment is discussed in terms of Janis's (1958) model. Patients' perceptions of information-giver hostility and dominance were also significantly (inversely) related to adjustment; the differential impact of informational versus interpersonal variables is discussed in terms of moderating characteristics of health care settings.