Psychosocial Outcomes in Young Adults with Cancer: Emotional Distress, Quality of Life and Personal Growth

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Abstract

This study aimed at assessing the psychosocial adjustment, specifically the emotional distress, quality of life (QOL) and personal growth, in a sample of 36 Portuguese young adults with cancer and 435 healthy controls. Cancer patients scored significantly lower than controls in the role, cognitive and social domains of QOL and in personal growth. Cancer patients scored significantly lower than off-treatment survivors in the role domain of QOL and personal growth. Cancer patients revealed QOL and personal growth difficulties. These issues need to be considered in the psychosocial intervention within adolescents and young adults' oncology care.

Section snippets

Participants

The total sample comprised 471 university students, 36 of which were young adult cancer patients and off-treatment survivors. This study was performed at different higher education institutes and universities, in Portugal. The demographic characteristics of the participants are presented in Table 1.

Concerning the cancer-specific variables of the 36 participants (12 males and 24 females), they were diagnosed with lymphoma (n = 6), skin carcinoma (n = 6), leukemia (n = 3), breast cancer (n = 4),

Emotional Distress, QOL and Personal Growth: Differences Between Cancer Patients and Controls

Table 2 presents mean scores, standard deviations and medians for emotional distress, QOL and personal growth of cancer patients and controls. Regarding emotional distress, results indicated that anxiety and depression levels in cancer patients did not differ significantly from controls. Considering QOL dimensions (global health/QOL and physical, role, emotional, cognitive and social functional subscales), it is emphasized that role (U = 1461.00, p = .001, r =  .15), cognitive (U = 1476.50, p = .006, r =  

Discussion

The present study contributes to the knowledge on emotional distress, QOL and personal growth issues among young adults with cancer. Our findings suggest that young adults with cancer (patients and off-treatment survivors) are well adapted from the emotional distress point of view, since there were no statistically significant differences between this group and the control group. These results are in line with works carried out previously (Felder-Puig et al., 1998, von Essen et al., 2000).

Acknowledgment

The authors would like to thank Raquel V. Oliveira (psychologist and native speaker) for proof reading the paper prior to its submission.

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