Coping among older-adult, long-term cancer survivors.
This research focuses on the coping behavior of older adult, long-term cancer survivors. Specifically, it identifies the personal (including race and gender) and illness/treatment characteristics of survivors that are significantly associated with the use of specific coping styles: planning, acceptance, venting, denial and seeking social support. It also examines the mediating role that these forms of coping play in terms of psychological distress: anxiety, depression and cancer-related worries. Multivariate analysis of data from a random sample of 321 long-term survivors in a major cancer center tumor registry is used to address the above issues. The most prominent forms of coping used by long-term survivors were planning and acceptance; least used were venting and denial. Increased age was associated with lower use of all forms of coping, but cancer type was not. Denial as a form of coping was associated with higher anxiety, depression and cancer-related worries. While race was not found to be a significant predictor of coping style, it was a significant predictor of three dimensions of psychological distress, anxiety, depression and cancer-related worries, with African Americans exhibiting lower levels of distress than Whites. The relevance of these findings for health and social service practitioners is discussed.
Deimling
Gary T
GT
Department of Sociology, Case Western Reserve University, 10900 Euclid Ave., Cleveland, OH 44106-7124, USA. gtd@Case.edu
Wagner
Louis J
LJ
Bowman
Karen F
KF
Sterns
Samantha
S
Kercher
Kyle
K
Kahana
Boaz
B
D000223:Adaptation, Psychological; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D001007:Anxiety / Q000209:etiology / Q000523:psychology; D001294:Attitude to Health; D003863:Depression / Q000209:etiology / Q000523:psychology; D018572:Disease-Free Survival; D005239:Fear; D005260:Female; D005500:Follow-Up Studies; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009364:Neoplasm Recurrence, Local / Q000523:psychology; D009369:Neoplasms / Q000401:mortality* / Q000523:psychology*; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D017741:Survivors / Q000523:psychology*