Abstract
Background: Patients who are undergoing for any kind of surgical intervention faces anxiety and stress. They need to adapt positive coping strategies to control their stress. If the stress level exceeds than coping, it will affect the recovery and surgical outcome. Purpose: To assess the level of stress and coping abilities of a clients who are planned to undergo for surgery in Tabuk. Methods: This descriptive Cross-sectional survey was conducted in the surgical units of the hospitals under Ministry of Health in Tabuk with the sample sizes of 250 clients. Perceived Stress Scale (PSS) was used to measure the stress level and Coping with Surgical Stress Scale (COSS) was used to measure the strategies used to cope with surgical stress. Results: The mean scores stress on PSS was 24.38, SD=8.244. Most of the clients had moderate and perceived level of stress on PSS. Most of the clients used information seeking and turning to religious coping than other strategies. Half of the participants had used favorable coping strategies and 47.6% of the participants used moderate coping strategies. Overall coping scores showed with x(-) =71.2, SD=19.26. Average positive linear correlation was observed between the stress level and coping. Significant difference was observed between the male and female participants on PSS and COSS. Conclusion: This study reveals that the clients who are in the preoperative period faces considerable stress and develops coping strategies accordingly. Providing adequate information and facilitating the coping strategies would beneficial in reducing the preoperative stress.