Among patients with cancer, having additional physical comorbidities was linked with a higher risk of experiencing psychological distress. The finding comes from a Psycho-Oncology analysis of 2017 data from the National Health Survey of Spain.
The analysis included 484 patients who reported a cancer diagnosis and 484 matched controls without a history of cancer. Compared with controls, patients with cancer reported more physical comorbidities, including chronic back pain, asthma, chronic bronchitis, urinary incontinence, prostate problems, and kidney problems. They also reported higher psychological distress and were more likely to have consulted a mental healthcare professional in the past year.
Thirty percent of patients with cancer reported significant psychological distress but only 10% had consulted a professional. Each additional physical comorbidity was associated with a 9% higher odds that patients with cancer would report having high psychological distress and a 21% higher odds that they would have consulted a mental healthcare professional.
“Comorbidities often influence the choice and management of cancer treatment. These results suggest that they could also be important for patients’ mental health in the months following diagnosis,” said the first author Dafina Petrova, PhD, of the Andalusian School of Public Health, in Spain.
Additional Information
Link to Study: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/pon.5632
About Journal
Psycho-Oncology is concerned with the psychological, social, behavioral, and ethical aspects of cancer. This subspeciality addresses the two major psychological dimensions of cancer: the psychological responses of patients to cancer at all stages of the disease, and that of their families and caretakers; and the psychological, behavioral and social factors that may influence the disease process. Psycho-oncology is an area of multi-disciplinary interest and has boundaries with the major specialities in oncology: the clinical disciplines (surgery, medicine, pediatrics, radiotherapy), epidemiology, immunology, endocrinology, biology, pathology, bioethics, palliative care, rehabilitation medicine, clinical trials research and decision making, as well as psychiatry and psychology.
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