Coping with breast cancer among immigrant Chinese Americans.

Abstract

Although there has been extensive research in the areas of coping styles and breast cancer survivors, few studies have examined coping in relation to the presence of psychological distress in Asian American breast cancer survivors. This study specifically explores the potential moderating role of two types of coping (seeking social support and distancing coping) on the relationship between cancer concerns and indicators of psychological distress (i.e., symptoms of depression and anxiety) among Chinese American breast cancer survivors and especially among a high-risk group, immigrant Chinese Americans. A total of 110 immigrant Chinese American breast cancer survivors completed a package of questionnaires. The current study analyzed data using hierarchical regression analysis. Broadly, cancer-related concerns were positively associated with both symptoms of depression and anxiety. Seeking social support coping was negatively associated with depressive symptoms. Distancing coping moderated the relationship between cancer-related concerns and the symptoms of anxiety, reducing anxiety among those with high levels of concern and increasing anxiety among those with lower levels of cancer concerns. For immigrant Chinese American breast cancer patients, distancing coping may be adaptive when dealing with high levels of stress. Future interventions among patients should consider teaching effective coping strategies within their cultural contexts.

A systematic review of risk factors associated with depression and anxiety in cancer patients

“…Fifteen studies used cross-sectional designs [30][31][32][33][34][35][36][37][38][39][40][41][42][43][44] and the remaining six were longitudinal [28,[45][46][47][48][49]. Cross-sectional and longitudinal studies roughly present the same picture.…”

“…Nine studies were from the United States [30,31,33,34,37,43,45,46,48], one from Italy [32], three from Taiwan [28,42,44], two from Japan [38,47], one from Poland [35], three from Australia [36,40,49], one from Nigeria [39], and one from Canada [41]. In terms of settings, study participants were recruited from general hospitals [42,44], outpatient areas of secondary or tertiary hospitals [28,30,32,33,35,38,39,[46][47][48][49], and community-based groups or organisations [31,34,36,37,40,41,43]. One study recruited from a community oncology clinic [45], this was included as such clinics follow the ethos of primary care.…”

Transcending the self to transcend suffering

“…In addition, self-transcendent experiences involving the sense of unity with others (e.g., communal worship, patriotic camaraderie in war) have been found to promote prosocial and pro-group behaviors (Swann and Buhrmester, 2015;Moss, 2019). These outward expressions of self-transcendence may also serve to signal prosociality to others and promote reciprocal positive social connections, giving rise to the systems of support that have been consistently observed as a potent resource for adaptive coping of suffering (Stallard et al, 2001;Matthews and Cook, 2009;Freh et al, 2013;Al-Kandari et al, 2017;Hoang et al, 2020;Fu et al, 2022).…”

Transcending the Self to Transcend Suffering

“…In addition, selftranscendent experiences involving the sense of unity with others (e.g., communal worship, patriotic camaraderie in war) have been found to promote prosocial and pro-group behaviors (Moss, 2018;Swann Jr. & Burhmeister, 2015). These outward expressions of self-transcendence may also serve to signal prosociality to others and promote reciprocal positive social connections, giving rise to the systems of support that have been consistently observed as a potent resource for adaptive coping of suffering (Al-Kandari et al, 2017;Freh et al, 2013;Matthews & Cook, 2009;Stallard et al, 2001;Hoang et al, 2020).…”