Title: | Associations between empirically proportionate and disproportionate fears of cancer recurrence and anxiety and depression in uveal melanoma survivors: Five-year prospective study |
Contributor(s): | Brown, Stephen (author) ; Hope-Stone, Laura (author); van der Voort, Nicola (author); Hussain, Rumana (author); Heimann, Heinrich (author); Coventry, William L (author) ; Cherry, Mary Gemma (author) |
Early Online Version: | 2024-03-10 |
Open Access: | Yes |
DOI: | 10.1111/bjhp.12719 |
Handle Link: | https://hdl.handle.net/1959.11/58445 |
Abstract: | | Objective: Fear of cancer recurrence (FCR) may develop into elevated anxiety or depression symptoms, but few risk factors for this development are known. Objective recurrence risk estimation is possible in some cancers. Using theories of risk communication and phobias, we examined whether the proportionality of FCR to known objective recurrence risk influences the development of anxiety and depression symptoms.
Method: Uveal melanoma (UM) patients can opt for reliable prognostic testing. Patients experience either a 'good' or 'poor' prognostic outcome, whereby 10-year mortality due to metastatic disease is, respectively, low or high. In a five-year prospective study of a consecutive sample of 589 UM survivors, we used random intercept cross lagged panel analyses to examine whether proportionality differentially influences whether FCR progresses to anxiety and depression.
Results: Positive cross paths predicting anxiety from FCR were stronger in the poor prognosis group than the good prognosis and not tested groups. Prognostic group differences were not evident for depression.
Conclusions: FCR was more likely to progress to elevated anxiety symptoms when proportionate to the known objective recurrence risk. Objective evidence may play a prominent role in the development and structure of fear because it assumes a high epistemic weight that activates a wide range of emotional and cognitive responses. Interventions that assist survivors to tolerate FCR in the presence of higher recurrence risks may be important in reducing anxiety symptoms.
Publication Type: | Journal Article |
Source of Publication: | British journal of health psychology, p. 1-14 |
Publisher: | John Wiley & Sons Ltd |
Place of Publication: | United Kingdom |
ISSN: | 2044-8287 1359-107X |
Fields of Research (FoR) 2020: | 520304 Health psychology |
Socio-Economic Objective (SEO) 2020: | 200409 Mental health |
Peer Reviewed: | Yes |
HERDC Category Description: | C1 Refereed Article in a Scholarly Journal |
Appears in Collections: | Journal Article School of Psychology
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