Resilience amongst cancer patients

Pages: 676-678
Sanjay Kumar and Promila Batra (Department of Psychology, Maharshi Dayanand University, Rohtak, Haryana)

Cancer is a genuine and intense issue that is known to be deadly. Because of its threatening nature, it is generally set apart by sadness and negative frame of mind towards life. Anxiety and depression among such patients are normal. The treatment itself, much of the time, acquires further deteriorating physical well-being of the patients alongside mental status. In this manner, it is critical to study the resilience of the people experiencing cancer. Keeping this in mind, present study was designed to assess and compare the resilience of various types of cancer patients in India with normal subjects. It was hypothesized that resilience would be significantly poor amongst the patients of cancer. To test the hypothesis, multi group design with four types of cancer i.e. breast, cervix, lung & prostate cancer was employed. A parallel control group was also taken in the 5 groups design. Sample consisted of 250 subjects. 50 cancer patients in each group and 50 normal healthy control subjects were selected on the basis of availability and informed consent. Resilience scale by Wagnild and Young (1993) was used to assess the resilience of the cancer patients. One way ANOVA followed by DRT showed that resilience amongst cancer patients had significantly reduced. The deterioration of resilience was found to be more in cervix and prostate cancer group and least in the breast cancer group and lung cancer group. It is suggested and recommended that psychological intervention to improve the resilience of cancer patients should be an integral part of the treatment and type of cancer should be considered while designing such interventions.