Emotional Distress And Coping In The Early Stage Of Recovery Following Acute Traumatic Hand Injury

BackgroundEmotional distress in the form of anxiety and depression is frequent in patients with acute traumatic hand injury in 1-2 weeks after the accident.Emotional distress brings a series of reactions in nerval and immune systems and influences patients' healing.Emotional distress is a result of multiple factors including personal factors and stressors after the trauma.The coping styles effect greatly in emotion reaction.Effective coping strategies can alleviate emotional distress,which is really important in nursing intervention.Researches on it have been done by some westem experts.Gustafsson reported 32%patients of acute traumatic hand injury had emotional distress who used more frequently avoidance coping than those without emotional distress in Swedish.The confrontive coping was more often adopted by patients without emotional distress.The patients of acute traumatic hand injury in China may have different emotional reactions and use different coping styles,because of different cultural background,social security system and economy envinoment and so on.To be familiar with different behaviors of emotional distress could help to identify those who need support.The nurses can help patients to use effective coping styles to alleviate eomtional distress.It can really incarnate the value of nursing care. ObjectivInvestigate the emotional states and coping styles of patients in the early stage of recovery following an acute traumatic hand injury,and the relationship in different coping patterns and emotional distress.MethodA total of 84 patients with acute traumatic hand injury requiring inpatient treatment were included in our investigation answering questionnairs in 1-2 weeks after the accident. Emotional distress was assessed with the Hospital Anxiety and Depression scale.Coping was measured with the Medical Modes Questionnair.Descriptive analysis,Independent samples T-test and multiple linear enter regression analysis were used.ResultsEmotional distress occurred in 54.76%of the patient with acute traumatic hand injury.23.81%patients only presented with anxiety,19.05%patients only presented with depression,and 11.90%patients presented both anxiety and despression. Resignation copings were associated with emotional distress(P＜0.01),confrontive and avoidance coping were more frequent in patients with depression(P＜0.05).ConclusionsEmotional distress prevails in the patients with acute traumatic hand injury.Lots of factors were related with patients'emotional reaction.Resignation coping is more adopted by patients with emotional distress in this research.Emotional distress should be emphasized more in clinical and negative stressors should be eliminated as much as possible.To help the patients use effective coping styles such as active confronce and proper avoidance is good for alleviating the patients' psychological pressure,reducing the incidence of emotional distress,and accelerating the steps of recovery.