Purpose: The present study’s purpose was to investigate the psychiatric symptoms in patients scheduled for cholocystectomy, and possible changes in psychiatric symptomatology during recovery. 

Methods: Fifty-five patients, who were scheduled for cholecystectomy, completed the following psychometric instruments: 

a) Hostility and Direction of Hostility Questionnaire (HDHQ) which measures intensity and direction of non physical hostility. 

b) Delusions, Symptoms, States, Inventory/states of Anxiety and Depression (DSSI/sAD). 

c) Symptoms Check List-90 (SCL-90R). Pain, insomnia, preoperative and postoperative use of analgesics, along with complications after surgery and days of stay in the hospital were also examined. Only 25% of the patients who reported preoperative pain received analgesic medication. Among the latter, 13% of them received sedative medication.

Results: In HDHQ, higher levels of hostility, with an intropunitive direction [males: 5.2 (sd=2.3), females: 5.8(2.5)] were reported by the patients with preoperative insomnia. High levels of hostility with an extrapunitive direction [males: 12.4 (sd=4.8), females: 11.8 (sd=3.8)] were reported by the patients who developed complications after surgery. A high percentage of those patients reported psychiatric symptoms mainly anxiety, depression and somatomorfom symptoms in DSSI/sAD [Anxiety: 3.93 (sd=3.51), Anxiety/Depression: 5.87 (sd= 6.30)] and in SCL-90 [Somatization: males: 9.2 (sd=7.0) and females: 15.8 (sd= 9.4), Depression: males: 13.1 (sd=7.5), females: 17.4 (sd=9.3)]