Relationship of Social Support, Coping Strategies and Personality Traits with Post Traumatic Growth in Cancer Patients

The present study aimed to investigate therelationship of social support, coping strategies and personality traits with post-traumatic growth in cancer patients and the extent to which Social Support, Coping strategies and personality traits predict post-traumatic growth. Participants were 286 cancer patients selected purposively from department of Radiation Oncology, Government Medical College and Associated Hospitals, Srinagar, Noora Hospital, Zainakote Srinagar, Florence hospital, Chanapora Srinagar, and Cancer Society of Kashmir, Chanapora, Srinagar. Participants completed the sample survey packets comprised of Multidimensional Scale of Perceived Social Support (Zimet, Dahlem, Zimet, & Farley, 1988), Brief COPE (Carver, 1997), NEO-FFI (Costa, P & McCrae, R, 1992), and Post-traumatic Growth Inventory-Short Form (Cann, Calhoun, Tedeschi, Taku, Vishnevsky, Triplett, & Danhauer, 2010). Results revealed that personality traits (Neuroticism, Extraversion, Openness, Conscientiousness), Adaptive coping strategies, Social support are significantly correlated with post-traumatic growth. It was further found that Social support, Adaptive coping strategies and Personality traits (Neuroticism, Conscientiousness), significantly predict post-traumatic growth explaining 26% of the variance in the model of post-traumatic growth. These findings have been discussed in the light of available literature.