Prevalence and clinical and psychological correlates of high fear of cancer recurrence in patients newly diagnosed with head and neck cancer
Abstract
Background: Patients with head and neck cancer (HNC) are vulnerable to fear of cancer recurrence (FCR) and psychiatric morbidity. We investigated the prevalence of high FCR and demographic, clinical, psychological, and psychiatric factors associated with high FCR prior to the start of the treatment. Methods: In a cross-sectional substudy of the large ongoing prospective NET-QUBIC study questionnaires and psychiatric interviews of 216 patients newly diagnosed with HNC were analyzed. Results: High FCR was observed in 52.8% of patients and among those 21.1% also had a lifetime history of selected anxiety or major depressive disorder. FCR was not related to any clinical characteristics; however, younger age, higher anxiety symptoms, introversion, greater needs for support regarding sexuality, and being an exsmoker were significantly associated with higher FCR. Conclusion: Factors associated with high FCR provide us with a better conceptual understanding of FCR in patients newly diagnosed with HNC.
Citation
Mirosevic , S , Thewes , B , van Herpen , C , Kaanders , J , Merkx , T , Humphris , G , Baatenburg de Jong , R J , Langendijk , J A , Leemans , C R , Terhaard , C H J , Verdonck-de Leeuw , I M , Takes , R , Prins , J & NET-QUBIC Consortium 2019 , ' Prevalence and clinical and psychological correlates of high fear of cancer recurrence in patients newly diagnosed with head and neck cancer ' , Head and Neck , vol. 41 , no. 9 , pp. 3187-3200 . https://doi.org/10.1002/hed.25812
Publication
Head and Neck
Status
Peer reviewed
ISSN
1043-3074Type
Journal article
Rights
Copyright © 2019 The Authors. Head & Neck published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Description
Funding information: Dutch Cancer Society (KWF- Alpe d'Huzes); Medical Faculty Ljubljana, Department of Family Medicine; Slovenian Research Agency (Young Researcher Program).Collections
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