Effect of the Holocaust on coping with cancer

The aim of the study was to investigate whether surviving stressful life threatening situations influences coping with new stressful life threatening situations. The study group, therefore, was composed of 53 cancer patients (present life threatening situation) who had survived the Holocaust (past l...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Social science & medicine (1982) 1992, Vol.34 (1), p.11-15
Main Authors: Baider, Lea, Peretz, Tamar, De-Nour, Atara Kaplan
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adaptation, Psychological
Aged
Biological and medical sciences
Cancer
Concentration Camps
Coping
Female
Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology
Holocaust
Holocaust survivors coping cancer
Humans
Illness and personality
Israel
Jewish holocaust survivors
Male
Neoplasms - psychology
Patients
Psychological Tests
Psychology and medicine
Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry
Psychology. Psychophysiology
Relationship
Social research
Stress
Stress, Psychological - psychology
survivors
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Summary:The aim of the study was to investigate whether surviving stressful life threatening situations influences coping with new stressful life threatening situations. The study group, therefore, was composed of 53 cancer patients (present life threatening situation) who had survived the Holocaust (past life threatening situation). They were compared to 53 cancer patients who had not gone through the Holocaust, matched for sociodemographic and medical background. The Holocaust survivors were unable to mobilize partial denial (had significantly higher scores on the Impact of Events Scale) and their psychological distress was much higher (significantly higher scores on the Brief Symptom Inventory). Their functioning however (as reported along the Psychosocial Adjustment to Physical Illness Scale) did not significantly differ from that of the comparison group. The possible mechanisms for these long term effects of past trauma are discussed as well as the need to regard traumatized persons as ‘high risk’ psychologically when they have to cope with new life threatening situations.
ISSN:0277-9536
1873-5347
DOI:10.1016/0277-9536(92)90061-T