Tiredness was a significant area of concern for many participants. Some people who had experienced it during prior surgical experiences, and one person who had been warned to expect tiredness, had less difficulty. Also, those who were not suddenly thrust into their full range of responsibilities had less trouble. Webb and Wilson-Barnett (1993), in one of the few studies that contacted subjects after their hospital stay, found tiredness to be most common complaint after a hysterectomy.
This was unexpected to these subjects as it was to the participants of this study. Tiredness was confusing, apparently because it was unexpected and hard to define, justify or visualize. Other people could not see it and they often expected a greater capacity to function than the participant could manage. Participants expressed a strong preference for accurate information in other areas. If the participant’s information was incorrect, incomplete or non-existent, frustrations developed.
Frustrations contributed to a negative attitude which the participants considered to be detrimental to healing. Having accurate information contributed to a sense of control and helped participants avoid emotional upset. Prior surgical experience seemed to help by providing a sense of knowledge about what to expect. McFarlane, Norman, Steiner, Roy, and Scot (1990) in a longitudinal study involving 500 subjects asked why people do not uniformly become ill after exposure to stressors of similar magnitudes.
The results indicated if subjects lacked a sense of control or did not have an opportunity to anticipate the stress that there was a greater chance of having more illness symptoms. Accurate anticipation has some similarities to one of the central axioms of Martha Rogers’ conceptual model, the idea of participating knowingly includes being aware of what one can do, and with that knowledge making choices freely and intentionally(Barrett, 1996). These participants wanted information with which they could make choices.
They believed that they were equipped to freely choose what was in their own best interest in relation to many aspects of healing. Bandura (1999) discussed forethought as often regulating human behavior. He observed that people left unsafe and more highly stressed if they were deprived of the ability to plan for their actions. They could extrapolate future consequences from known facts. They were hen able to take action to avert negative consequences. Helen and Amy both planned constructive actions in light of information from their prior surgeries.
Ivan would have liked more information to have avoided returning to work unprepared for the inability to do his job. Moch (1998), in discussing the crisis “crisis of physical illness” (p. 7) defined one of the important coping skills as seeking relevant information with the belief that this information will relieve anxiety caused by uncertainty and misconceptions. Rehearsing alternate outcomes was another suggested coping skill. It was though that anticipating outcomes reduced stress by reducing the number of unexpected problems.