Psychological factors affecting oncology conditions.

Abstract

The area of psychological factors affecting cancer has been the object of research starting from the early 1950s and consolidating from the 1970s with the development of psychooncology. A series of problems in the DSM and ICD nosological systems, such as the difficult application of the criteria for psychiatric diagnoses (i.e. major depression, adjustment disorders) and the scarce space dedicated to the rubric of psychosocial implications of medical illness (i.e. Psychological Factors Affecting a Medical Condition under 'Other Conditions That May Be a Focus of Clinical Attention' in the DSM-IV) represent a major challenge in psycho-oncology. The application of the Diagnostic Criteria for Psychosomatic Research (DCPR) has been shown to be useful in a more precise identification of several psychological domains in patients with cancer. The DCPR dimensions of health anxiety, demoralization and alexithymia have been shown to be quite frequent in cancer patient (37.7, 28.8 and 26%, respectively). The overlap between a formal DSM-IV diagnosis and the DCPR is low, with 58% of patients being categorized as non-cases on the DSM-IV having at least one DCPR syndrome. The specific quality of the DCPR in characterizing psychosocial aspects secondary to cancer is also confirmed by the fact that some dimensions of coping (e.g. Mini-Mental Adjustment to Cancer subscale hopelessness) correlate with the DCPR dimension of demoralization, while a quantitative approach on symptom assessment (e.g. stress symptoms on the Brief Symptom Inventory) is not useful in discriminating the patients with and without DCPR syndromes. More research is needed in order to understand the relationship between DCPR constructs (e.g. alexithymia) and psychosocial factors which have been shown to be significant in oncology (e.g. emotional repression and avoidance). The role of specific DCPR constructs in influencing the course of illness is also an area that should be investigated.