Hospitalization, even in patients who are not faced with the prospect of surgery, is known to cause anxiety. One may, therefore, expect some degree of anxiety in patients attending for day surgery. Anxiety provokes a physiological stress response, which impedes the healing process. Thus, the reduction of preoperative anxiety is widely accepted as part of nursing care. This article investigates the coping strategies that patients adopt and the suitability of current anxiety-reduction interventions. It argues that individual coping styles do not remain static but adapt according to need and proposes that, as a result of lack of awareness, the therapeutic potential of the nurse-patient relationship in anxiety-reduction is being overshadowed by uncertainty-reduction approaches which place a disproportionate emphasis on the provision of information.