Untersuchung zur Prävalenz und zum Verlauf posttraumatischer Stressreaktionen bei Patienten mit Tumorerkrankung

The diagnosis of a cancer illness means a severe traumatic event for the patients and is a potential stressor for the development of post-traumatic stress disorders. This circumstance is complicated by the fact that a cancer illness does not present an isolated event, but is a persistent stressor. The aim of this study was to assess the prevalence of post-traumatic stress reactions (PTSR) and recognition of possible psychosocial risk factors and predictors, which are highly important for an accurate prognosis on the development of a PTSR-symptomatology among the patients with cancer illness. During this longitudinal study 46 Patients with different types of newly diagnosed tumor diseases were examined in acute hospital care phase (T1) and about four months later (T2). More than 25% during T1 and almost 40% of the patients at T2 showed clinically relevant PTSR. Thus, the traumatizing potential of a tumor illness is comparable with other serious stress situations, such as Rape, momentous accidents and assault. Patients with PTSR-findings in T2 featured clearly higher scale values in cognitive-emotional exposure, anxiety, depression, as well as state- and trait-anxiety, than patients without stress disorders. No significant relationship could be found between the type of Tumor at T1 and the emergence of PTSR-symptomatology. Female gender and PTSR-findings in T1 along with psychosocial distress proved to be important predictors for a relevant post-traumatic stress disorder at T2. The results of our study indicate that, regardless of the specific type of tumor, the assessment of mental stress can be very helpful for the early detection of risk factors in terms of a maladaptive course of acute cancer illness. Unfortunately the implementations of findings in clinical strategies are still in an initial stage. Studies with a large number of participants and investigated factors are to be aspired. In order to understand the specific character of trauma and its associated experiences, it is highly important to adapt the instruments of assessment to the individual situation of cancer patients, to develop and evaluate the new psychometric devices and patterns for the comprehension of disease implications.

Grantor dc:publisher

Publikationsserver der RWTH Aachen University

Year dc:date

2009

Author dc:creator

• Singh, Jaswant

Contributors dc:contributor

• Petzold, Ernst Richard

• info:eu-repo/classification/ddc/610
• Posttraumatische Belastungsstörung
• Prävalenz
• Medizin
• Prädiktoren
• posttraumatische Stressreaktion
• Tumorerkrankung
• Post-traumatic stress disorder
• prevalence
• predictors
• post-traumatic stress Reaktion
• cancer illness

Statement dc:rights

• info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess

Language dc:language

ger

Identifier

https://publications.rwth-aachen.de/search?p=id:%22RWTH-CONV-113458%22

OAI record oai:identifier

https://publications.rwth-aachen.de/oai2d?verb=GetRecord&metadataPrefix=oai_dc&identifier=oai%3Apublications.rwth-aachen.de%3A51143