Psychosomatic Medicine 27:309-316 (1965)
© 1965 American Psychosomatic Society

Preoperative Psychological State and Corticosteroid Levels of Surgical Patients

¹ Department of Psychiatry of the U. S. Veterans Administration Hospital, West Haven, Conn. Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, Conn.
² Department of Psychiatry of the U. S. Veterans Administration Hospital, West Haven, Conn. Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, Conn.; Bryn Mawr Hospital, Bryn Mawr, Pa.

Ten patients undergoing elective herniorrhaphies were studied. The preoperative psychological state was investigated through a psychiatric interview and tests of anxiety and depression. The results of these studies were correlated with plasma corticosteroid levels during the preoperative and surgical periods. Ratings of preoperative discomfort-involvement correlated positively with preoperative steroid levels and negatively with the change in steroid levels during the first 45 min. of surgery. The negative correlation is interpreted as the effect of the removal of psychological stress by anesthesia. Stress is also reflected physiologically by the fact that the longer a patient waits for surgery, the more his steroid level tends to rise. A further finding is the negative correlation between the Taylor Manifest Anxiety Scale and the plasma steroid levels immediately before and after surgery.