Trajectories of cancer-specific stress in cancer patients: a latent growth mixture analysis

This study aimed to examine trajectories of cancer specific stress (CSS) over the course of a year, starting at the beginning of chemotherapy, and identify psychosocial factors that predicted trajectory class membership. Growth Mixture Modeling was used to identify distinct trajectories of CSS. Multinomial regression examined potential psychosocial predictors of trajectory membership. In the 4-class solution, all four trajectories demonstrated a decrease in CSS over the year but with differing intercepts and magnitudes of slopes. These were characterized asrecovery,resilience,chronic, andseverely chronic. Therecovery group reported significantly higher insomnia scores than the resilient group. Thechronic group reported significantly higher insomnia, higher depression, lower social support, and lower optimism than theresilient group. Thechronic group reported significantly lower social support and higher depression than therecovery group. The findings provide information about psychosocial risk factors for CSS that can be screened for early intervention following diagnosis.
Source: Journal of Behavioral Medicine - Category: Psychiatry Source Type: research