MMPI profile predictors for successful and expired open heart surgery patients
✍ Scribed by Charles V. Lair; Glen D. King
- Publisher
- John Wiley and Sons
- Year
- 1976
- Tongue
- English
- Weight
- 332 KB
- Volume
- 32
- Category
- Article
- ISSN
- 0021-9762
No coin nor oath required. For personal study only.
✦ Synopsis
PROBLEM
A recent research study by Dlin, Fischer, and Huddell(2) indicated that psychological factors play an important role in determining a patient's reaction t o and recovery from open heart surgery. I n addition, Egerton and Kay(3) have reported a 41% incidence of delirium, while Blachy and Starr") have reported a 57% incidence of delirium after open heart surgery. Mortality associated with open heart surgery may or may not vary as a function of age, sex, or preoperative cardiac disability c5, 6), but certainly psychological factors have been implicated in the reaction to open heart surgery, and attention should be directed t o the presurgery personality adjustment. Gilberstadt and Sako (4), who studied the MMPI profiles of patients who survived or did not survive open heart surgery, found that survivors demonstrated more denial as indicated by significantly higher L and I< T-scores, while nonsurvivors showed more agitation, withdrawal, and organic disability as indicated by significantly higher F, PA, MA, and SI T-scores. The authors concluded that denial was an adaptive response employed by heart surgery patients. In contrast, Henrichs, Mackenzie, and Almond (5' compared open heart surgery survivors and nonsurvivors by sex and found male nonsurvivors to be significantly more anxious and female nonsurvivors t o have significantly more denial, emotional overcontrol, and physical complaints. Clearly, it is important to determine the relationship between presurgery personality and mortality during open heart surgery because such information may be used to reduce significantly open heart surgery mortality. The present study was undertaken as a reanalysis of data collected and reported by Lair and Biddyc6) to determine whether the personality dimensions of denial@) or anxiety (4), as measured by the MMPI, predict subsequent open heart surgery mortality differently by sex.