Comparing the Psychological Problems, Death Anxiety, Dysfunctional Attitudes andQuality of Life in Cancer Patients and Healthy Individuals

Background and Objective: Cancer affects all aspects of patient s life. Therefore, this study aims to comparatively investigate the psychological problems, death anxiety, dysfunctional attitudes, and quality of life between cancerous and healthy individuals. Materials and Methods: Descriptive and causal-comparative analyses were used as research method. The cancerous patients (n= 90) were selected using the census sampling method and healthy subjects (n= 90) were selected using the judicative sampling method among the all cancer patients and healthy individuals of Bandar Abbas city, Iran. Depression, Anxiety, and Stress Scale, Death Anxiety Scale, DysfunctionalAttitude Scale, and Quality of Life questionnaires were used to collect the relevant data. Multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) was used for analyzing the data.Results: The results showed a significant difference between cancerous patients and healthy individuals in psychological problems (F= 42.6, p< 0.001), death anxiety (F= 36.9, p< 0.001), dysfunctional attitudes (F= 15.5, p< 0.001), whereas no significant difference between the two groups in the quality of life (F= 0.509, p> 0.477). Conclusion: The findings showed that in addition to the physical problems, cancer patients suffer different mental problems caused by the disease. Furthermore, the cancer cannot destroy all aspects of the patients life.

Keywords:

Psychological problems , Anxiety , Dysfunctional attitudes , Quality of life , Cancer