Does coronary artery bypass surgery improve psychological distress, psychosocial adjustment, and cardiac state in male patients?
While coronary artery bypass surgery significantly improves physical cardiac state, it does not necessarily resolve underlying psychological distress or alter personality and family relations at 12 months.
Twenty-eight consecutive male patients were examined a few days before, and again twelve months after, coronary artery bypass surgery. The evaluation included the patients' psychological distress, psychosocial adjustment, cardiac state, personality and family relations. Before surgery the patients were relatively well adjusted, despite being severely disabled physically. On the follow-up evaluation the cardiac state improved significantly on every index examined. On the other hand no change occurred in the psychological distress, personality and family relations. Significant post-operative improvement was found in some of the domains of the psychosocial adjustment, but not in others.
Stein et al. (Fri,) studied this question.