A Cross-Sectional Study Examining the Relationship Between Socio-Demographics and Coping Styles in a Group of Cancer Patients.

OBJECTIVE

The global number of oncological patients is expected to rise worldwide. However, the increase in the number of cases is linked with an increase in life expectancy. Hence, it's worth knowing about patients' resources for managing life with chronic illness. Specifically, the present study was aimed to examine the association between socio-demographic characteristics and coping strategies.

METHOD

Participants were one-hundred and twenty-one cancer patients (70.2% females), aged 26 to 88 years (M=61.90, SD=12.16). Socio-demographic characteristics and coping styles were measured by a self-report questionnaire and the mini-Mental Adjustment to Cancer Scale. A series of standard multiple regression analyses were performed to predict coping styles based on gender, age, education level, marital status, working status, disability pension, income, and time since diagnosis at the moment of the survey.

RESULTS

The female gender showed a positive association with hopelessness/ helplessness, anxious preoccupation, fatalism, and avoidance. Being a worker seemed positively related to the fighting spirit strategy. Age, marital status, and disability pension did not reveal any association with coping. Having an active-work status was positively associated with fighting spirit. Finally, both educational level and income were negatively associated with the use of fatalism coping strategy, whereas the cancer patients with longer elapsed time since diagnosis showed tendency to fatalism style.

CONCLUSIONS

Consistent with the recognized relevance of individual differences for gathering data about patients' risk and protective factors, our findings might be useful for both research purpose and clinical practice.