What is it about?
Posttraumatic growth is positive psychological changes which may occurred in cancer patients as a result of struggle with the traumatic event. We have shown posttraumatic growth, depression and anxiety decrease with time but they are not correlated in head and neck cancer patients. This confirmed the notion that posttraumatic growth and psychological distress can co-exist simultaneously with insignificant relationship between them in cancer patients.
Featured Image
Why is it important?
Data on posttraumatic growth changes across time is lacking. Here we conducted a prospective study to investigate it and its relationship with common psychological complications of cancer which are depression and anxiety. Two significant findings are that: (1) posttraumatic growth may decrease with time if psychosocial intervention is not administered to strengthen it in cancer patients and (2) posttraumatic growth may not decrease depression and anxiety in cancer patients even if it is present or increase.
Perspectives
Conducting this study and writing this article initiate my interest in studying posttraumatic growth in cancer patients whereby the phenomenon is potentially beneficial for cancer patients and it remained unexplored in the Malaysian cancer population. This also allowed me to form my research team to study the phenomenon in Malaysia.
Mohammad Farris Iman Leong Bin Abdullah
Universiti Sains Malaysia
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Posttraumatic growth, depression and anxiety in head and neck cancer patients: examining their patterns and correlations in a prospective study, Psycho-Oncology, January 2015, Wiley,
DOI: 10.1002/pon.3740.
You can read the full text:
Contributors
The following have contributed to this page
