Psychological Aspects of Hysterectomy & Postoperative Care

Hysterectomy is one of the commonest gynaecological procedures undertaken in the UK and in the USA. (Gupta & Manyonda, 2011) It is carried out both for benign indications (namely abnormal uterine bleeding and pelvic pain) and for malignancies of the female genital tract. In some cases there are multiple indications for hysterectomy, for example, menorrhagia and dysmenorrhoea (Williams & Clark, 2000) and chronic pelvic pain can accompany a variety of other gynaecological diagnoses. Bilateral salpingo-oophrectomy is often carried out concurrently and this may be followed by postoperative commencement of hormone replacement therapy (HRT).