Schroyen Sarah, Adam Stéphane, Jerusalem Guy, Missotten Pierre
Unité de psychologie de la sénescence, Université de Liège, Belgique.
Oncologie médicale, Centre hospitalier universitaire de Liège, Belgique.
Geriatr Psychol Neuropsychiatr Vieil. 2014 Jun;12(2):131-8. doi: 10.1684/pnv.2014.0471.
Cancer is a major health problem for which age is a proved risk factor. Paradoxically, elderly suffering from cancer are often excluded from clinical trials and undertreated compared to younger patients. Also, their psychosocial needs remain unknown. An explanatory factor for these observations is the age stigma (that is to say our stereotypes about age and so, ageism), age being currently cited as the main reason for discrimination. Besides these age-related stigmas, cancerous patients face pathology-related stigmas because nowadays cancer (especially some types of cancer such as lung cancer) still conveys a lot of negative representations. These observations bring us to the notion of double stigmatization in oncogeriatry. Moreover, the aim of this review is to present ageism phenomenon on the basis of several studies that had proved negative influence of ageism on elderly's mental and physical health and on the attitude of elderly's interlocutors. Afterwards, we will broach the way by which ageism and stigmatization linked to cancer is observed in the specific context of oncogeriatry, which will allow us to identify current shortcomings.
癌症是一个重大的健康问题，年龄是已被证实的风险因素。矛盾的是，与年轻患者相比，患癌老年人往往被排除在临床试验之外，治疗不足。此外，他们的心理社会需求仍然未知。这些观察结果的一个解释因素是年龄歧视（也就是说我们对年龄的刻板印象，即年龄主义），年龄目前被认为是歧视的主要原因。除了这些与年龄相关的歧视外，癌症患者还面临与疾病相关的歧视，因为如今癌症（尤其是某些类型的癌症，如肺癌）仍然带有许多负面形象。这些观察结果使我们想到老年肿瘤学中的双重歧视概念。此外，本综述的目的是基于多项研究呈现年龄歧视现象，这些研究证明了年龄歧视对老年人身心健康以及老年人对话者态度的负面影响。之后，我们将探讨在老年肿瘤学的特定背景下观察到的与癌症相关的年龄歧视和污名化方式，这将使我们能够识别当前的不足之处。
