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. 2023 Apr 6;28(1):66-73.
doi: 10.5603/RPOR.a2023.0012. eCollection 2023.

Coping with cancer and a history of health-related events

Marta Homa  1 , Michał Ziarko  2 , Maria Litwiniuk  3   4
Affiliations

Coping with cancer and a history of health-related events

Marta Homa et al. Rep Pract Oncol Radiother. .

Abstract

Background: Cancer is a source of stress related to the resulting change in lifestyle. The processes which take place when a patient is coping with a disease may be explained in terms of the transactional concept of psychological stress (Lazarus, Folkman) and the critical life events model (Filipp). These two complementary theoretical approaches set the direction and aim of the study which was to determine the role played by earlier events responsible for health loss due to a chronic, serious disease in the course of a stress transaction in cancer patients.

Materials and methods: The study involved 121 patients with either breast or colorectal cancer undergoing chemotherapy as part of their treatment. They were asked to complete a purpose-designed set of questionnaires which included Revised Illness Perception Questionnaire (IPQ-R), the Mini-Mental Adjustment to Cancer (Mini-MAC) questionnaire, the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS), Acceptance of Illness Scale (AIS). The interdependencies between variables were determined using difference significance tests (Mann-Whitney, Kruskal-Wallis) and the Dunn's correction test. The significance level (alpha) of 0.05 was assumed appropriate for the study.

Results: Patients with previous health-related events were found to expect the struggle with cancer to be a greater and more serious challenge. Those patients had suffered loss of health prior to getting cancer and their emotional reactions were heightened. This finding allowed the identification of patients more prone to creating a negative view of their disease.

Conclusions: When planning a psychological treatment of patients with cancer, an account must be taken of their past life events and earlier experiences of being ill, in order to implement appropriate psychological intervention aimed at reducing their emotional stress.

Keywords: Transactional Model of Stress and Coping; cancer; psychological care.

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Conflict of interest statement

Conflict of interest The authors report no conflicts of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Statistically significant differences in the emotional state
Figure 2
Figure 2
Statistically significant differences in self-perception of the disease in group with experience of a chronic, serious disease prior to developing cancer vs. type of cancer
Figure 3
Figure 3
Statistically significant differences in self-perception of the disease in group with no experience of a chronic, serious disease prior to developing cancer vs. type of cancer
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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