The impact of psychological stress on wound healing: methods and mechanisms.

Wound healing is a critical process involved in the recovery from injury and surgical procedures. Poor healing increases the risk for wound infections or complications, lengthens hospital stays, magnifies patient discomfort, and slows return to activities of daily living. Converging evidence from different research paradigms suggests that psychological stress and other behavioral factors can affect wound healing. A meta-analytical study using diverse wound-healing models and outcomes found that across studies there was an average correlation of −0.42 between psychological stress and wound healing. This result suggests that the relationship between stress and wound repair is not only statistically significant but also clinically relevant. This review presents data and methods from observational, experimental, and interventional studies corroborating the impact of stress on wound healing. Potential behavioral and physiologic mechanisms explaining the association between stress and impaired wound healing are also discussed.