BY REBECCA WALSH
People who feel stressed before surgery take longer to recover than those who are relaxed about their operations, a clinical study by Auckland researchers has found.
The researchers followed the progress of 47 adults who had hernia operations at North Shore Hospital in the first clinical study to look at the relationship between stress and the speed of wound healing.
Researcher Elizabeth Broadbent, a PhD student in health psychology at Auckland University, said patients were interviewed about a week before their surgery to gauge the level of stress they had been under in the previous month.
They were also asked how worried they were about the surgery.
The researchers found people who reported more stress before the operation had lower levels of a chemical known as IL-1, which is important in the initial stages of wound repair.
Another chemical, which the body produced to break down part of the wound, allowing new cells to migrate to the area and collagen to form, was also tested.
Miss Broadbent said people who were worried about their operation also had less of this chemical.
A follow-up questionnaire found they also reported more post-operative pain and a longer recovery time than the less-worried patients.
Miss Broadbent said people should try to reduce stress levels before an operation to aid recovery.
But she acknowledged that was not always easy to do.
"Maybe if future research confirms what we have found, then hospitals and health providers can help to reduce stress levels," she said.
Dr Keith Petrie, associate professor in health psychology at Auckland University, said laboratory work had shown that stress slowed the speed of wound healing, but no studies using surgical patients had been done.
Previous research had found that "interventions" such as relaxation techniques reduced post-operative complications, pain and the length of hospital stays.
"This research shows that such interventions could also improve the patient's healing time," he said.
The research team, which also includes North Shore Hospital surgeon Dr Pat Alley and immunologist Dr Roger Booth, has started two new projects.
One will look at the effect of stress and support on women having breast surgery; the other will study stress and hip and knee replacements.
Herald Feature: Health
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