05 / Being Diagnosed With Cancer: The Experiences of Patients With Non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma

Abstract

Cancer is an important health problem affecting both patients and their relatives in many dimensions including physical, social, economic and spiritual dimensions. This study was conducted in order to determine levels of depression and hopelessness of relatives of patients receiving oncological treatment.The research was performed with participation of 151 relatives of oncology patients who received outpatient treatment in chemotherapy unit of a university hospital between 18.03.2015 and 25.06.2015. Data was obtained by using a 24-question questionnaire intended for determination of socio-demographical characteristics of patient relatives, Beck's Depression Inventory and Beck's Hopelessness Scale. In evaluation of data, percentage estimation, one-way ANOVA, Independent Sampling t test and Tukey test were used.In this study; it was determined that 43% of patients were women, 57% were men, 28.5% diagnosed with gastrointestinal cancer, 21.9% were diagnosed with respiratory tract cancer, 36.4% were at stage 3, 29.8% were diagnosed within last year, 39.1% perceived their health statuses as poor and 27.2% were not satisfied from the medical treatment they were receiving. It was also determined that of the relatives of oncology patients; 67.5% were women, 32.5% were men, 49% were working, 69.5% had incomes equal to expenditures, 34.4% were patients' husband/wife, 31.1% were patients' son/daughter, 58.9% were living in same houses and 35.1% had taken care of the patient for more than a year. In this study, average Beck's Depression Inventory score was determined to be 16.2±10.4 and average Beck's Hopelessness Scale score was determined to be 8.0±3.2.In this study, it was observed that status of hopelessness in patient relatives was moderate and 22.5% had moderate-level depression. It was also determined that depression and hopelessness scores of patient relatives differed in accordance with characteristics such as age, gender, marital status, educational status, occupation, degree of relationship, status of sharing the same house.