1Senior Resident, Lokopriya Gopinath Bordoloi Regional Institute of Mental Health, Tezpur
2MD, Professor and Head, Department of Psychiatry, Jorhat Medical College Hospital, Jorhat, Assam, India
*Correspondence: debkunal21@gmail.com
Online published on 30 July, 2015.
Head and neck cancer accounts for 30% of all cancers. The diagnosis with cancer imparts a lot of stress and the patient's ability to cope with this stress reflects in their quality of life.
To study perceived stress, coping and its correlation in patients with head and neck cancer.
The study was a case controlled study. After ethical clearance from
institutional review board, 50 subjects with head and neck cancer, and 50 age and sex matched healthy controls from the same socio-cultural background were selected. Each group comprised of 30 males and 20 females between 21–70 years of age, and they were assessed with Perceived Stress Scale and Ways of Coping Questionnaire. Unpaired sample t-test and Spearman correlation were used, and results were obtained.
The study group had significantly higher stress than the controls (p<0.05), and using confrontive coping, accepting responsibility, and escape avoidance as coping strategy had positive correlation with perceived stress (p<0.05), while seeking social support and positive reappraisal as coping strategy had negative correlation (p<0.05).
Patients with head and neck cancer have a significantly high stress, and maladaptive coping may further aggravate this stress.
Quality of Life, Neoplasms, Case-Control Studies, Radiotherapy, Holistic Health
