Page 96 - Psychology of Wounds and Wound Care in Clinical Practice ( PDFDrive )

70 Chapter 3. Stress

stressful events. Despite this, the PSS is a more general mea-
sure of stress in that it refers to occurrences of stress related
thoughts and feelings which have been experienced over the
previous month. Thus, this measure may render inapplicable
when considering stress induced in specific clinical situations
(i.e. during dressing changes).

The State Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI;
Speilberger 1977 )

This particular measure differs to that discussed above in that it
can measure stress in relation to a specific clinical situation (i.e.
during dressing changes). It is designed in order to differentiate
between a temporary condition of state of anxiety and long
term experience of train anxiety. Due to this, the STAI can be
advantageous to the clinician in terms of wound assessments.

The General Health Questionnaire (GHQ;
Goldberg et al. 1978 )

This particular method was developed in order to measure
emotional distress presented in patients within both commu-
nity and clinical settings, with higher scores indicating higher
emotional distress. The GHQ items are also designed to iden-
tify patient’s health behaviours. One particular advantage of
this measure is its emphasis on measuring anxiety, insomnia
and depression but without placing a focus on physical symp-
toms of illness. Although the GHQ can be used in conjunc-
tion with other measures of stress, its items are not specifically
designed to measure patient stress. Thus, it may not be appli-
cable when implemented within a wound-care regime alone.

The Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale
(HADS; Zigmond and Snaith 1983 )

Finally, the HADS, a 14-item scale, was developed to assess
clinical cases of anxiety and depression in medical out-patient