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. 2017 Sep 20:15:13.
doi: 10.1186/s13053-017-0073-x. eCollection 2017.

Evaluation of psychosocial aspects in participants of cancer genetic counseling

Leivy Patricia González-Ramírez  1   2 , Reyna Martínez-Arriaga  1   2 , Erendira Camacho-Cárdenas  2 , Azucena Del Toro-Valero  2   3 , Antonio Oceguera-Villanueva  3 , Livia Zagamé  3 , Aída Araceli Silva-García  4 , Adrián Daneri-Navarro  2   5
Affiliations

Evaluation of psychosocial aspects in participants of cancer genetic counseling

Leivy Patricia González-Ramírez et al. Hered Cancer Clin Pract. .

Abstract

Background: The instrument called "Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale" (HADS) is frequently used to evaluate anxious and depressive symptomatology in patients who receive Cancer Genetic Counseling (CGC). However, this instrument cannot identify all of the psychosocial factors, such as the antecedents of the patients' emotional states or their concerns. The objective of the present research was to compare cases detected with psychosocial alterations by means of HADS and a Psychological Health Interview (PHI).

Methods: A transversal analytical design was used. One hundred ten participants were included (97.3% females and 2.7% males). The average age was 45 years ±10 years.

Results: The PHI identified twice the amount of participants with psychosocial alterations than did HADS, which only detected 43% of these participants.

Conclusions: The results of our study suggest that the PHI should be applied in addition to HADS to identify participants who would require psychological support due to recurrent concerns.

Keywords: Anxiety; Breast cancer; Cancer genetic counseling; Depression scale; Psychological Health Interview.

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Conflict of interest statement

Ethics approval and consent to participate

The project has the approval of the Committees of Investigation, Ethics, and Biosafety of all participating institutions: Instituto Jalisciense de Cancerología (004/12), O.P.D. Hospital Civil Nuevo de Guadalajara “Dr. Juan I. Menchaca” (1289/13) and Universidad de Guadalajara (C.I. 035–2011). Informed consent was obtained from all of the participants included in the study. This consent mentioned the performance of the genetic test and the clinical and psychological evaluations. At the same time, the participants were informed about the aims of this research.

Consent for publication

All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

Competing interests

The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Publisher’s Note

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Correlations between anxiety and depression obtained by HADS with respect to worries, grief, and sleep problems obtained with the PHI. Note: Statistical significance = *p < 0.05, **p < 0.01, and ***p < 0.001
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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