Relationship of general self‐efficacy with anxiety, symptom severity and quality of life in cancer patients before and after radiotherapy treatment

Abstract

A sense of self-efficacy and its relationship with anxiety, symptom distress and quality of life are important factors for patients receiving radiotherapy. Health care professionals need to be aware of anxiety, symptom severity and patient's quality of life prior to treatment initiation.

Prevalence and Associated Positive Psychological Variables of Depression and Anxiety among Chinese Cervical Cancer Patients: A Cross-Sectional Study

“…Compared with the negative and inevitable factors mentioned above, positive psychological variables (hope, optimism and self-efficacy) may be secondary to depression and anxiety of cancer patients. Although some studies explored the impacts of positive psychological variables on depression and anxiety among cancer patients [17], [23], [31], the possibility that reduced hope, lower optimism and reduced self-efficacy may be also the potential causes of depression and anxiety did not receive much consideration. Therefore, in addition to discussing the prevalence and associated clinic variables of depression/anxiety among cervical cancer patients, we also mainly explored the effects of hope, optimism and self-efficacy on depression and anxiety.…”

“…In this study, hope, optimism and general self-efficacy showed significantly independent effects on depression when they entered into regression together, indicating that hope, optimism and general self-efficacy as a whole might alleviate depression by enabling patients to establish positive, realistic and desired goals, have confidence to achieve the given goals and recognize the interdependent influence of others (hope) [17], [21], to expect positive health-related outcomes in the future and maintain the efforts to attain the realistic and achievable outcomes (optimism) [24], [26], to mobilize the resources required to positively manage or combat the physical and psychological challenges of cancer (general self-efficacy) [28]–[31]. These findings leaded us to believe that both positive outlooks regarding one's own goal, life and family/friends (hope), positive expectancies regarding favorable outcomes in one's own future (optimism), and positive beliefs regarding one's own ability to deal with the challenges (general self-efficacy) were important to successfully alleviate and even overcome depression in cervical cancer patients.…”

“…To date studies in the oncology field have mainly explored the impact of one of the three variables (hope, optimism and general self-efficacy) on depression and anxiety among cancer patients [17], [23], [31]. Although these three constructs were defined in different ways and might influence depression and anxiety through different mechanisms, they had at least three points in common.…”

“…Although these three constructs were defined in different ways and might influence depression and anxiety through different mechanisms, they had at least three points in common. First, to some extent, they could all refer to the internally positive psychological constructs (or called psychological resource) of individual; second, they all could be considered as a positive coping style (or they co-occurred with more adaptive and positive coping strategies) with an illness experience including cancer [18], [23], [26], [30], [33]; third, they all could be recognized as a positive personality, or they could be supposed to be relatively stable (or called trait like) constructs [18], [22], [23], [26], [28], [31].…”

Evaluation of Quality of Life and Psychological Response in Recurrent and Metastatic Tumors Treated with Palliative Radiotherapy

“…Concerning the influence of radiotherapy on the psychophysiological state, a study reported that there was a correlation between QOL/symptom deterioration and anxiety/depression [16] [17]. However, no study has examined palliative radiotherapy.…”