Psychological distress and coping following eye removal surgery

Purpose: Psychological distress is reasonably well documented in people with facial disfigurement; however, in patients following eye removal surgery this has not been studied adequately. We hypothesised that lower distress levels would be associated with age and more adaptive coping strategies and that women would be more likely to report higher levels of distress and, therefore, use maladaptive coping strategies. Methods: This exploratory, cross-sectional study measured distress and coping in a sample of 56 post enucleation or evisceration patients. The Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale and the Brief COPE measured distress and coping strategies. Results: In all, 25.5% and 10.9% of the sample had high levels of anxiety and depression, respectively. Significant associations were found between levels of distress, coping strategies and demographic variables (p