Positive and negative affect after diagnosis of advanced cancer

Abstract

Anxiety and depression are studied thoroughly in patients with advanced cancer. However, little is known about the nature of mood disorders in this stage of the disease. We studied positive and negative affect in patients who have had a diagnosis of advanced cancer, and examined how these are related to anxiety and depression, and to other patient and care factors. One hundred and five patients filled out a written questionnaire and were interviewed personally. The PANAS positive affect scores were lower than those in the general population, but the negative affect scores were fairly similar. We found a rather low prevalence of depression (13%) and anxiety (8%) as measured by the HADS. The emotional problems patients mentioned most frequently were anxiety about metastases (26%), the unpredictability of the future (18%) and anxiety about physical suffering (15%). Both positive and negative affect were most strongly related to patient's sense of meaning and peace. We conclude that distinguishing positive and negative affect enhances the understanding of psychological distress of patients with advanced cancer, that seems to be mainly caused by low levels of positive affect. Several theories are discussed to explain this finding, that may contribute to efforts to improve care for these patients.

Perceived distress and its association with depression and anxiety in breast cancer patients

“…Breast cancer patients who anticipate more negative effects from the disease and treatment in the beginning experience a higher level of anxiety [42]. We have shown that the level of distress and anxiety was higher at the diagnosis and significantly reduced over a 12 months period.…”

ApoE alleles, depression and positive affect in multiple sclerosis

“…Severity of symptoms (range 01–27) and presence versus absence of possible MDD were used as dependent variables in this investigation. The positive affect scale of the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule (PANAS-P) [27] was used to assess positive affect that is largely independent of depression [28]. Scores can range from 101–50 for the PANAS-P.…”

Afecto positivo y negativo: ¿Una dimensión bipolar o dos dimensiones unipolares independientes?

“…También se ha estudiado en trastornos físicos como el cáncer (Voogt et al, 2005), cardiopatías (Spindler, Denollet, Kruse & Pedersen, 2009;Versteeg et al, 2009) y otros trastornos de salud (Fortenberry et al, 2009;Janicki-Deverts, Cohen, Doyle, Turner & Treanor, 2007).…”