The rhythm of chemotherapy and cancer patients’ time perspectives

Abstract

Background While it is well known that illnesses such as cancer modify the experience of time, the impact of the rhythm and length of treatment on patients’ time perspectives remains unknown. Methods A short version of Zimbardo Time Perspective Inventory and Transcendental Future Perspective Questionnaire as well as a demographic questionnaire on a convenience sample of 259 patients (66.8% female, mean age 52.36) with various cancers and undergoing chemotherapy with different frequencies (1, 2, 3 weeks) and mean time in treatment 23.4 months. Results The temporal perspectives mean scores of cancer patients are: positive past 3.69, negative past 3.13, present hedonism 3.08, future 3.77, transcendental future 3.40. Patients tend only slightly to lose faith alongside the course of oncological treatment regardless of their age (ρ = − 0.210, p < 0.01). The frequency of chemotherapy mildly differentiates temporal perspectives of patients regarding present hedonism and transcendental future: a weekly treatment is more disturbing than the triweekly one and no treatment in terms of hedonism, while patients not in chemo score significantly higher in transcendental future than patients in biweekly and triweekly chemo. Conclusions The variations of treatment rhythm are less significant than predicted, although still relevant. Since most sociodemographic variables are of no relevance, cancer experience likely unifies temporal perspectives among people of different backgrounds.

The rhythm of chemotherapy and the felt experience of time: a front-loaded phenomenological retrospective cohort study

“…However, it is not significantly related to the actual time of treatment or age. It is as if the treatment phase itself enforced a new quality of lived time for the patients and unified any pre-existing differences between them—a phenomenon previously described in relation to biographical disruption, altered meaning of time in cancer, and time perspectives 9 , 12 , 38 .…”

“…There is strong evidence that an optimistic outlook provides a variety of emotional, social, and health benefits for people with cancer 11 – 13 . For example, in breast cancer patients, positive expectancies are an important cognitive mechanism by which they continue to pursue valued life goals 12 . Conversely, past ruminations are associated with psychological distress 11 .…”

“…Conversely, past ruminations are associated with psychological distress 11 . An unusual high focus on the future among cancer patients might be a coping mechanism that helps to maintain motivation to fight the disease 12 .…”

“…The only two studies concerning this subject were conducted by the authors of this paper (MM, PK, and JWB). One attempted to measure the impact of rhythms on cancer patients' temporal perspectives and found that the increased frequencies lower the level of hedonism 12 . The other focused on the frequencies of chemotherapy found that they are inversely related to patients' orientation in time and their awareness of mortality, both being the highest for those in the triweekly treatment 23 .…”

Chemotherapy, clocks, and the awareness of death: A quantitative phenomenological study

“…Hypothetically, those in the more frequent treatment are more focused on its effects, have a more immediate sense of its impact, and are thus more focused on recovery and not on dying. Regardless of the actual effectiveness of chemo, since more frequent treatment is associated with decreased hedonism ( Moskalewicz et al, 2022a ), those service users could be living in a more intense “survival-mode,” which would also prevent them from pausing and reflecting on their lives.…”