Introduction:

The surgical treatment of organ removal seems to meet a number of pathologies that emerge as health needs of populations. In this context, the state of uncertainty is installed.

Objective:

To investigate the uncertainty in illness in surgical patients of organ removal.

Method:

Cross-sectional study developed with patients admitted to the surgical outpatient clinic of a university hospital. Sociodemographic and clinical variables were collected, in addition to applying Mishel uncertainty in illness scale.

Results:

The profile of medical diagnoses in the 60 participants showed that the most frequent diseases were the neoplasms. As for the scale application, 68% of the participants presented scores greater than or equal to 80 points. The value found for the Cronbach’s Alpha was 0.842. The surgical procedures abdominal hysterectomy and mastectomy, which were the most prevalent for the participants, are associated with uncertainty domains.

Conclusions:

High levels of uncertainty demonstrated the need for the management of this condition. The psychosocial aspects of surgical treatments are disregarded at the expense of the clinical restoration, circumstances that neglect the patient’s emotional suffering. The improvement of communication between the health professional and the patient can influence to prevent the manifestation of the lack of information, one of the forms of expressing uncertainty. Aspects such as the patient’s socioeconomic profile, educational level and income must be taken into account in the surgical treatment of organ removal. The uncertainty experienced by these patients needs to be better known and widely disseminated to gain prominence in the health care setting.

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