Although some writers assume that negative attitudes toward cancer and other chronic disease patients are prevalent, systematic data have been scarce. Perceptions of patients and their illnesses were assessed for college students, nurses, medical students, and chiropractic students. Subjects rated cancer, AIDS, diabetes, and heart disease patients, as well as the nonill, on 21 bipolar trait items, selected to measure competence, moral worth, dependence, depression, and morbidity. There were also measures of social distance, cancer anxiety, disease beliefs, and ascribed illness responsibility. With minor exceptions, all subsamples perceived cancer victims less favorably than diabetics, heart patients, and the nonill on competence, dependence, depression, and morbidity. Cancer patients were always seen as even more depressed than AIDS sufferers but were rated just as favorably as well people on moral worth. People with AIDS were generally the most negatively evaluated and most rejected group. Cancer was consistently described as the most painful condition and, next to AIDS, the least understood medically and most deadly. Cancer anxiety was moderately predictive of perceptions of cancer victims, and ratings of illness responsibility were moderately predictive of moral worth ratings for the cancer and AIDS groups. Theoretical and practical implications were discussed.
