Recovery from minor abdominal surgery: a preliminary attempt to separate anxiety and coping

Using bivariate and canonical correlations, we investigated the dimensionality and post-operative correlates of indices which, we suggested, could be related to active cognitive coping in 40 patients undergoing minor abdominal surgery. Trait anxiety and pre-operative state anxiety were also measured; these intercorrelated, but each was independent of the putative coping measures. There were, however, intercorrelations amongst these questionnaires, which included the 'worry' scale of a coping checklist, Type A personality, pre-operative arousal and, in a negative direction, 'powerful others' health locus of control and pre-operative stress. The dissociation between anxiety and the remaining measures emerged also in the post-operative correlates of these two dimensions. Whereas anxiety predicted poorer self-rated bodily state on the first post-operative day, the coping measures predicted a better state seven days post-operatively.