Effects of hospitalization and its length on perception of stress

Pages: 153-156
Sonali Jakar, Pratiksha Sharma, and Tejendra Singh (Department of Psychology, University of Rajashtan, Jaipur, Rajashtan)

The process of hospitalization is a very traumatic experience whether it’s a male or female. People have to move their life setting from the familiar to unfamiliar environment, losing their privacy, and sense of security and individuality. There are several factors which can lead to stress. People who are having some physical or mental discomfort but are not hospitalized also experiences stress in some form or other. What is really important when it comes to stress is not what happens to you but how you perceive what happens to you. The level of stress we feel has a lot to do with our personality, and our subjective interpretation of what is happening. Different people when exposed to similar stressful stimuli may perceive them differently on the basis of their present situation and conditions. The present study is designed to see the difference between how stress is perceived in different situations. The situations considered here are hospitalization and non-hospitalization settings. Further the span of hospitalization is also taken under consideration. Comparison is made between patients admitted for less than and equal to/more than five days. The study is carried out on 60 participants, 30 in each group, selected by random sampling method. The tool used for the study is perceived stress scale by Sheldon Cohen consisting of 10 items. Independent t-test is used for statistical analysis. The result indicates that there is no significant difference in the way stress is perceived by hospitalized and non-hospitalized patients. Length of hospitalization also does not affect the perception of stress of inpatients.