title: Personality traits and coping styles explain anxiety in lung cancer patients to a greater extent than other factors.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  Although various factors thought to be correlated with anxiety in cancer patients, relative importance of each factors were unknown. We tested our hypothesis that personality traits and coping styles explain anxiety in lung cancer patients to a greater extent than other factors.
  
  
  METHODS
  A total of 1334 consecutively recruited lung cancer patients were selected, and data on cancer-related variables, demographic characteristics, health behaviors, physical symptoms and psychological factors consisting of personality traits and coping styles were obtained. The participants were divided into groups with or without a significant anxiety using the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale-Anxiety, and a binary logistic regression analysis was used to identify factors correlated with significant anxiety using a multivariate model.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Among the recruited patients, 440 (33.0%) had significant anxiety. The binary logistic regression analysis revealed a coefficient of determination (overall R(2)) of 39.0%, and the explanation for psychological factors was much higher (30.7%) than those for cancer-related variables (1.1%), demographic characteristics (2.1%), health behaviors (0.8%) and physical symptoms (4.3%). Four specific factors remained significant in a multivariate model. A neurotic personality trait, a coping style of helplessness/hopelessness, and a female sex were positively correlated with significant anxiety, while a coping style of fatalism was negatively correlated.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Our hypothesis was supported, and anxiety was strongly linked with personality trait and coping style. As a clinical implication, the use of screening instruments to identify these factors and intervention for psychological crisis may be needed.
authors.affiliation: Psycho-Oncology Division, National Cancer Center Hospital, Tokyo keshimiz@ncc.go.jp.
authors.forename: Ken
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Shimizu
authors.affiliation: Division of Personalized Prevention and Epidemiology, Department of Preventive Medicine and Epidemiology, Tohoku Medical Megabank Organization, Tohoku University, Miyagi.
authors.forename: Naoki
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Nakaya
authors.affiliation: Department of Behavioral Medicine, Tohoku University Graduate School of Medicine, Miyagi.
authors.forename: Kumi
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Saito-Nakaya
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry and Cognitive-Behavioral Medicine, Nagoya City University Graduate School of Medical Sciences, Aichi.
authors.forename: Tatsuo
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Akechi
authors.affiliation: Psycho-Oncology Division, Research Center for Innovative Oncology, National Cancer Center Hospital East, Chiba Psycho-Oncology Division, National Cancer Center Hospital East, Chiba.
authors.forename: Asao
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Ogawa
authors.affiliation: Psycho-Oncology Division, Research Center for Innovative Oncology, National Cancer Center Hospital East, Chiba Psycho-Oncology Division, National Cancer Center Hospital East, Chiba Department of Neuropsychiatry, Keio University School of Medicine, Tokyo.
authors.forename: Daisuke
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Fujisawa
authors.affiliation: Department of Rehabilitation, Faculty of Health Science, Tohoku Fukushi University, Miyagi.
authors.forename: Toshimasa
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Sone
authors.affiliation: Department of Stress Sciences and Psychosomatic Medicine, Graduate School of Medicine, The University of Tokyo, Tokyo.
authors.forename: Kazuhiro
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Yoshiuchi
authors.affiliation: Division of Thoracic Oncology, National Cancer Center Hospital East, Chiba.
authors.forename: Koichi
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Goto
authors.affiliation: Division of Epidemiology, Research Center for Cancer Prevention and Screening, National Cancer Center Research Institute, Tokyo.
authors.forename: Motoki
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Iwasaki
authors.affiliation: Research Center for Cancer Prevention and Screening, Nationa Cancer Center Research Institute, Tokyo.
authors.forename: Shoichiro
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Tsugane
authors.affiliation: Department of Neuropsychiatry, Okayama University Graduate School of Medicine, Dentistry and Pharmaceutical Sciences, Okayama, Japan.
authors.forename: Yosuke
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Uchitomi
mesh_terms: D000223:Adaptation, Psychological; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D001007:Anxiety / Q000209:etiology*; D001008:Anxiety Disorders; D005260:Female; D006380:Helplessness, Learned; D065026:Hope; D006801:Humans; D016015:Logistic Models; D008175:Lung Neoplasms / Q000523:psychology*; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D000075384:Neuroticism; D010551:Personality; D012307:Risk Factors; D012737:Sex Factors; D013315:Stress, Psychological / Q000209:etiology; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires
keywords: adaptation; anxiety; neoplasms; personality; psychological