title: Psychological coping mechanisms and survival time in metastatic breast cancer.
abstract: Thirty-five women with metastatic breast cancer received a battery of baseline psychological tests; results were correlated with length of survival. Patients who died in less than one year from baseline were categorized as short-term survivors, while patients who lived for one year or longer were assigned to the long-term survivor group. The long-term survivors were more symptomatic overall, with particular elevations on measures of anxiety and alienation, and substantially higher levels of dysphoric mood (eg, depression, guilt) than the short-term survivors. Short-term survivors revealed significantly lower levels of hostility, with higher levels of positive mood. Treating oncologists perceived the long-term survivors to show significantly poorer adjustment to their illnesses than the short-term survivors, and an interviewer's ratings indicated that long-term survivors had significantly poorer attitudes toward their physicians. Measures of clinical status and demographic data revealed few differences between the two groups.
mesh_terms: D000223:Adaptation, Psychological; D000342:Affective Symptoms / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000209:etiology; D001007:Anxiety / Q000175:diagnosis; D001943:Breast Neoplasms / Q000401:mortality / Q000523:psychology*; D003863:Depression / Q000175:diagnosis; D005260:Female; D006791:Hostility; D006801:Humans; D008875:Middle Aged; D009362:Neoplasm Metastasis; D010817:Physician-Patient Relations; D011581:Psychological Tests; D012918:Social Alienation