Effect of information on emotional responses during barium enema

A quasi-experimental study was conducted to extend: 1) Johnson's findings by using a measure of anxiety proneness to control for individual variations in responding to stressful situations and 2) the applicability of Johnson's work to another procedure, barium enema. The subjects, 24 hospitalized patients, were assigned to one of three information conditions: sensation, procedure, or no information. Prior to the barium enema all subjects took the trait portion of Spielberger's State-Trait Anxiety Inventory to measure relatively stable individual differences in anxiety proneness. Two groups heard a taped measure of sensation or procedural information; the third group heard no information. After the barium enema, all subjects took the state portion of the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory to measure emotional responses during the barium enema. Subjects who received sensation information reported less anxiety than subjects who received no information or procedural information. However, the hypothesized relationships between the mean state anxiety scores for the three information groups were not found.