The major stressful life events and cancer: stress history and cancer

• Published in: Medical oncology (Northwood, London, England) London, England), 2012-06, Vol.29 (2), p.1371-1377
• Main Authors: Tas, Faruk, Karalar, Umran, Aliustaoglu, Mehmet, Keskin, Serkan, Can, Gulbeyaz, Cinar, Fatma Ebru
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Adolescent; Adult; Aged; Aged, 80 and over; Female; Follow-Up Studies; Hematology; Humans; Internal Medicine; Life Change Events; Male; Medicine; Medicine & Public Health; Middle Aged; Neoplasms - diagnosis; Neoplasms - psychology; Oncology; Original Paper; Pathology; Prognosis; Social Support; Socioeconomic Factors; Stress, Psychological - psychology; Surveys and Questionnaires; Turkey; Young Adult
• ISSN: 1357-0560; 1559-131X
• DOI: 10.1007/s12032-011-9927-7

The objective of this study was to analyze the extent of stressful life events’ etiology and to compare socio-demographic and medical characteristics of the presence and absence of stress in Turkish cancer patients. Patients with cancer who attended ambulatory patient care units answered the questionnaires. Medical information was reviewed from chart data. The study population comprised 465 women (60.5%) and 303 men (39.5%), in total 768 cases. The median age was 53 years, ranging between 18 and 94. Three-hundred and twenty patients (41.7%) had at least one type of stress since last year of the time of initial diagnosis. Among patients had stress, the median number of stress modalities presented was 1 (range 1–6). Death, lack of livelihood, quarrel, illness, and debt almost always consisted of stress types. History of stress within last year was found more in women (66.3% vs. 56.5%, P  = 0.006) and overweight patients (57.5% vs. 47.2%, P  = 0.005). Similarly, among cancer types, only patients with breast cancer (41.9% vs. 31.7%, P  = 0.04) had lived more stressful situation. However, the married patients (72.2% vs. 80.6%, P  = 0.03) had less stress. Patients with gastric cancer had more frequent debt (29.0%, P