This research examines a model of how personality (Five-Factor Model) is related to adjustment to cancer in later life in terms of the presence of continuing cancer-related worry and depression among older adult, long-term cancer survivors. Data from an NCI-funded study with 275 older adult (age 60+), long-term (5+ years) survivors of breast, prostate, and colorectal cancer were examined. Regression analyses identified neuroticism as the strongest predictor of cancer-related worry along with continuing cancer-related symptoms. For depression, three personality dimensions (neuroticism, conscientiousness, and agreeableness) were significant predictors. Findings suggest the importance of considering the central role that survivors' personality characteristics play in understanding cancer-related worries and depression. Understanding these dispositional characteristics is key for social workers and health-care practitioners in counseling survivors experiencing these common mental health effects.

The findings suggest that geriatricians, geriatric nurses, and clinical gerontologists who work with cancer survivorsneed to be aware of the ways in which both cancer and noncancer illness factors work together in producing threats to health quality of life through the extent and nature of functional impairments.