The present study evaluates the efficacy of self-hypnosis and its components--relaxation instructions and waking analgesia suggestions--for pain reduction in patients recovering from gallbladder surgery. Forty elective surgery patients were randomly assigned to one of the three experimental pain control procedures or to a standard treatment control group--preoperative teaching. The treatments were found to be equally credible and generated equivalent expectancies for success. Pain was assessed using multiple subjective and objective measures sampled across the postoperative period. Multivariate analysis of these data indicated that the experimental treatments were no more effective in diminishing postoperative pain than the control procedure. However, the analysis revealed several significant correlates and predictors of postoperative pain. These included trait anxiety, depression, stress coping style as well as interview and rating scale reports of cognitive coping strategies. Significant predictors of credibility--expectancy, treatment utilization and cognitive coping classifications were also found. Analysis of the pain measurement strategy indicated consistency among the subjective measures--the McGill Pain Questionnaire and visual analogue scales--which were relatively independent from the objective measures, which comprised electronically monitored gross motor activity and analgesic medication requirements. Possible interpretations and implications of these results as well as suggestions for future research are discussed.
Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:QMM.71825 |
Date | January 1983 |
Creators | Taenzer, Paul. |
Publisher | McGill University |
Source Sets | Library and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada |
Language | English |
Detected Language | English |
Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
Format | application/pdf |
Coverage | Doctor of Philosophy (Department of Psychology.) |
Rights | All items in eScholarship@McGill are protected by copyright with all rights reserved unless otherwise indicated. |
Relation | alephsysno: 000159336, proquestno: AAINK64506, Theses scanned by UMI/ProQuest. |
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