Measurement of psycho-emotional constructs and self-management in health of patients with cancer

Abstract

The present study aimed measure self-esteem, anxiety and depression and activation scores in individuals with cancer; compare these scores according to whether or not chemotherapy was performed and verify the influence of these constructs in the self-management in health. This study is a Cross-sectional study with a quantitative approach, performed at the outpatient clinic of a school hospital. The instrument was answered by adult patients, diagnosed with cancer for at least 6 months and in outpatient follow-up. We used the Pearson correlation test and the Student t test in order to evaluate the variables of interest. The level of significance was 0.05. Seventy patients participated in the study; forty six of them were women. The average age was 50.17 years (SD = 11.26) and the average of the education level in years was 8.27 (SD = 3.73). The most prevalent cancer was the breast cancer. The average score obtained by the instruments were: 32.71 (SD = 4.64) for self-esteem; 6.07 (SD = 3.84) for anxiety; 4.90 (SD = 3.76) for depression and 64.24 (SD = 15.21) for activation. We observed weak correlations of these constructs with activation (p <0.05) and that the use of chemotherapy did not interfere with the score of these measures (p> 0.05). The education level presented a weak correlation with the measure of activation (r = 0.240, p <0.05), and comorbidities presented weak correlation with the measure of self-esteem (r =-0.274, p <0.05). In conclusion, the cancer patients presented high selfesteem, low anxiety and depression symptoms and high activation. There is a weak relationship between measures evaluated and the self-management in health.

Anxiety disorders and depression in patients undergoing cancer treatment using the hads scale: An integrative review

“…In the study (SOUZA et al, 2018), only depression, in the HADS subscale, showed a statistical difference between the means, regarding gender and age group (p<0.05).…”

“…In the study by Souza et al (2018) (SOUZA et al, 2018 the scores to measure symptoms of anxiety and depression showed that these symptoms are at normal levels, equivalent to the levels of the general population. This result may be related to the high levels of self-esteem shown in the study in question.…”

“…Among the limitations presented in the articles of the corpus, the small number of participants (BASTOS et al, 2016;CAMARGO et al, 2020;FERREIRA et al, 2015;FOSTER;LANCASTER;WAR, 2014;SOUZA et al, 2018;VALDERRAMA RIOS;SÁNCHEZ PEDRAZA, 2018) and the limited period in which the sample was collected (CAMARGO et al, 2020;FOSTER;LANCASTER;GUERRA, 2014). There were also reports of dispersion due to the number of institutions that offer the treatment being much broader than those surveyed (BASTOS et al, 2016)), lack of differentiation between patients who underwent surgical treatment or not, or classification according to stage of the disease or prognosis (FERREIRA et al, 2015).…”

Evaluation of anxiety, depression and stress symptoms in men with prostate cancer during the preoperative period

“…In a study by Souza et al (2018) focusing on cancer patients, there was no statistically significant correlation between the variable time since diagnosis and depression, anxiety, self-esteem and activation symptoms, except when the correlation was made with the variables level of schooling and number of comorbidities. This information may contribute to other studies involving the variable: time of diagnosis for cancer patients.…”