Measurement of psycho-emotional constructs and self-management in health of patients with cancer

Abstract

The present study aimed measure self-esteem, anxiety and depression and activation scores in individuals with cancer; compare these scores according to whether or not chemotherapy was performed and verify the influence of these constructs in the self-management in health. This study is a Cross-sectional study with a quantitative approach, performed at the outpatient clinic of a school hospital. The instrument was answered by adult patients, diagnosed with cancer for at least 6 months and in outpatient follow-up. We used the Pearson correlation test and the Student t test in order to evaluate the variables of interest. The level of significance was 0.05. Seventy patients participated in the study; forty six of them were women. The average age was 50.17 years (SD = 11.26) and the average of the education level in years was 8.27 (SD = 3.73). The most prevalent cancer was the breast cancer. The average score obtained by the instruments were: 32.71 (SD = 4.64) for self-esteem; 6.07 (SD = 3.84) for anxiety; 4.90 (SD = 3.76) for depression and 64.24 (SD = 15.21) for activation. We observed weak correlations of these constructs with activation (p <0.05) and that the use of chemotherapy did not interfere with the score of these measures (p> 0.05). The education level presented a weak correlation with the measure of activation (r = 0.240, p <0.05), and comorbidities presented weak correlation with the measure of self-esteem (r = -0.274, p <0.05). In conclusion, the cancer patients presented high self-esteem, low anxiety and depression symptoms and high activation. There is a weak relationship between measures evaluated and the self-management in health.