Zavagli Veronica, Varani Silvia, Samolsky-Dekel Adir Robert, Brighetti Gianni, Pannuti Franco
Dipartimento di Psicologia, Università di Bologna, Bologna, Italy.
G Ital Med Lav Ergon. 2012 Apr-Jun;34(2 Suppl B):B17-22.
Cancer patients family caregivers are exposed to several physical and emotional distress. Many recent reviews have provided strong evidence linking negative affective states and dispositions to disease. Moreover, several recent studies suggested that perseverative cognition, as manifested in worry, plays a role in nearly all anxiety disorders and is a crucial factor in somatic health as well. In this study, we tested a group of family caregivers since we wanted to find out whether worry might act directly on psychological and somatic diseases.
The sample consists of 107 family caregivers. Participants completed a battery of self-report questionnaires including the Caregiver Burden Inventory, the Penn State Worry Questionnaire, the Psychophysiological Questionnaire and the Beck Depression Inventory. They underwent tests at the moment of oncological home-care request.
The study has revealed that there is a significant positive correlation between worry measures and mental and physical health of the participants. In fact, the tendency to perseverative cognition resulted as a powerful and solid predictor of physical symptomatology (R = 0.5, beta = 0.67, p < 0.001) and depression level (R = 0.46, beta = 0.52, p < 0.000001).
Worry plays an important role in psychological and physical health and it is a counterproductive attempt at constructive mental problem solving. These results have great practical and operative value. Interventions improving caregiver's ability to cope with stress situations are likely to result in more positive benefits for cancer patients: in fact, if we promote the caregiver's physical and emotional well-being, he or she can provide the best care possible to the patient.
癌症患者的家庭照顾者会面临多种身体和情感上的困扰。最近的许多综述都提供了有力证据，将负面情绪状态和性格倾向与疾病联系起来。此外，最近的几项研究表明，以担忧形式表现出来的持续性认知在几乎所有焦虑症中都起作用，并且也是身体健康的一个关键因素。在本研究中，我们对一组家庭照顾者进行了测试，因为我们想弄清楚担忧是否可能直接作用于心理和躯体疾病。
样本包括107名家庭照顾者。参与者完成了一系列自我报告问卷，包括照顾者负担量表、宾夕法尼亚州立大学担忧问卷、心理生理问卷和贝克抑郁量表。他们在提出肿瘤居家护理请求时接受了测试。
研究表明，担忧测量值与参与者的身心健康之间存在显著正相关。事实上，持续性认知倾向是身体症状（R = 0.5，β = 0.67，p < 0.001）和抑郁水平（R = 0.46，β = 0.52，p < 0.000001）的一个强大而可靠的预测指标。
担忧在心理和身体健康中起着重要作用，并且是解决建设性心理问题的适得其反的尝试。这些结果具有很大的实践和操作价值。提高照顾者应对压力情况能力的干预措施可能会给癌症患者带来更积极的益处：事实上，如果我们促进照顾者的身心健康，他或她就能为患者提供尽可能好的护理。
