Clinical Psychology and Psychotherapy, Department of Psychology, University of Kiel, Kiel, Germany.
Department of Neurosurgery, University Hospital Schleswig-Holstein, Kiel, Germany.
J Psychosoc Oncol. 2020 May-Jun;38(3):310-327. doi: 10.1080/07347332.2019.1642283. Epub 2019 Jul 26.
Interpersonal factors are of major importance for cancer patients' physical and mental health. Brain tumor patients rank amongst those cancer patients with the highest psychosocial burden. Changes in language, cognition, and personality pose specific risk factors for impeding interpersonal functioning in this patient group. Despite this, role and relevance of social support including both supportive (e.g., emotional support) and detrimental interactions causing distress (e.g., critical remarks) are not well understood. Aims of this study were thus (1) to investigate the association of social support and patients' Health Related Quality of Life (HRQoL) and (2) to assess whether this relationship is mediated by the patients' disclosure behavior. Seventy-four ambulatory brain tumor patients (mean age 54 years; 58% women) completed the following self-report questionnaires: Illness-specific Social Support Scale (SSUK) for assessment of positive support and detrimental interactions, the Disclosure of Trauma Questionnaire (DTQ) for assessment of patients' disclosure behavior, and the Short-Form Health Survey (SF-8) for assessment of QoL. Detrimental social interactions were significantly related to patients' mental and physical well-being while positive support was not. Our results support a model in which patients perceiving detrimental social interactions show more difficulties in talking about illness-specific contents in a functional manner. This, in turn, was associated with a lower physical and mental HRQoL. This was the first study in which the close associations of detrimental social interactions, brain tumor patients' dysfunctional disclosure behavior and patients' mental as well as physical well-being were empiricially validated. Thus, dysfunctional disclosure behavior might pose a relevant therapeutic target when offering psycho-oncological support for brain tumor patients and their families.
人际因素对癌症患者的身心健康至关重要。脑肿瘤患者是心理社会负担最高的癌症患者之一。语言、认知和个性的变化给这群患者的人际交往功能带来了特定的风险因素。尽管如此，社会支持的作用和相关性，包括支持性的（例如情感支持）和造成困扰的有害互动（例如批评性言论），尚未得到充分理解。因此，本研究的目的是：（1）研究社会支持与患者健康相关生活质量（HRQoL）之间的关系；（2）评估这种关系是否受患者披露行为的影响。74 名门诊脑肿瘤患者（平均年龄 54 岁；58%为女性）完成了以下自我报告问卷：疾病特异性社会支持量表（SSUK）用于评估积极支持和有害互动，创伤披露问卷（DTQ）用于评估患者的披露行为，以及健康调查简表（SF-8）用于评估生活质量。有害的社会互动与患者的身心健康显著相关，而积极的支持则没有。我们的结果支持了这样一种模式，即感知到有害社会互动的患者在以功能性方式谈论疾病特异性内容时会遇到更多困难。反过来，这与较低的身心 HRQoL 相关。这是第一项实证验证有害社会互动、脑肿瘤患者功能失调的披露行为以及患者心理和身体健康之间密切关联的研究。因此，当为脑肿瘤患者及其家属提供心理肿瘤学支持时，功能失调的披露行为可能是一个相关的治疗靶点。
