Psycho-oncology
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This study examined how language reflective of emotional and social processes during a cancer-related discussion relates to patient, couple, and family adjustment after breast cancer. It investigated whether emotional expression or relational focus, manifested in language use, indicates healthy family coping following breast cancer. ⋯ Important information about how a family copes with breast cancer can be obtained by attending to families' emotional and relational language. This study suggests that clinicians and members of families' support networks can gauge how well a family has adapted after the breast cancer experience by attending to the type of words that each family member uses to describe how they coped with breast cancer.
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The objective of this study was to identify caregivers' unmet needs and the psychosocial variables associated with unmet need count within the first 24 months post-survivor diagnosis. ⋯ This is the first longitudinal analysis of caregivers' unmet needs as they enter early and extended survivorship. Findings provide valuable insights into caregiver's unmet needs over time and identified a sub-group of caregivers at risk of experiencing unmet needs, extending previous research and informing the timing and content of psychosocial services.
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This study examines the association between psychological morbidity, social support, and demographic and clinical variables in adult children of cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy. Special attention was given to the variable level of parental dependency. The main predictors of caregiving burden were tested, as well as the mediating role of social support in the relationship between psychological morbidity and burden. ⋯ Results underscore the importance of perceived parental dependency in offspring's caregivers. Findings support the multidimensional issues associated to burden in this specific population, stressing satisfaction with social support as an important mediator between distress/PTSD and burden. Implications for further research as well as limitations of the present study are discussed. Psychosocial interventions should focus on caregivers' social resources to facilitate psychological well-being.
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The aim of this study was to assess the levels and sources of distress in patients with lymphoma. This study also focused on the influence of factors of the level of distress and the cutoff score using the Distress Thermometer (DT) relative to the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS). ⋯ DT is efficacious for screening for anxiety and depression in lymphoma patients.
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To investigate the prevalence of desire for formal psychological support of primary caregivers of patients with cancer and to identify caregivers' and patients' socio-demographic and psychological characteristics as well as patients' disease-related characteristics associated with this desire. ⋯ One out of five caregivers desires formal psychological support although one out of two caregivers experiences significant levels of distress. The weak association between caregivers' desire for formal support and distress emphasizes the need to implement systematic screenings of both their distress and their desire for formal psychological support in oncology.