Symptom experience in women after hysterectomy

To review the literature addressing the symptom experience of women after hysterectomy.

Computerized searches in MEDLINE and CINAHL, as well as texts and references cited in articles. Key concepts in the searches included hysterectomy, sleep disturbance and pain, hysterectomy and fatigue, hysterectomy, depression, and depressed mood.

Articles and comprehensive works relevant to key concepts and published after 1970, with an emphasis on new findings from 1990 to 2000. Sixty-four citations were identified as useful to this review.

Data were organized under the following headings: women and hysterectomy, biopsychosocial perspectives, common symptoms after hysterectomy (pain, disturbed sleep, fatigue, depressed mood, anxiety), and significance of review (implications).

Literature suggests that after a hysterectomy, women experience complications during the postoperative recovery period that may vary with the type of surgical procedure. During this period, the quantity and quality of sleep as well as other symptoms (pain, fatigue, anxiety, and depression) are influenced by various physiologic, psychologic, and social factors. Despite limited evidence that sleep problems may occur frequently during the recovery period, only a few researchers have systematically examined sleep patterns in women after hysterectomy. None of these studies, however, used objective sleep measures or examined multiple dimensions of these women's lives.

This review conceptualized the women's symptom experience as the experience of specific symptoms (pain, sleep disturbance, fatigue, depressed mood, and anxiety) that were influenced by biopsychosocial factors.