The mediating effect of stigma on the relationship between fear of disease progression and social alienation in patients with haematological malignancies.

Objective: To explore the mediating effect of shame in patients with malignant haematological diseases between fear of disease progression and social alienation.

Methods: Recruiting 310 patients with haematological malignancies as the research population, the convenience sampling method was used to investigate the general information questionnaire, the fear of disease progression scale, the social influence scale and the general alienation scale.

Results: The patients with haematological malignancies scored (36.02 ± 9.74) points for fear of disease progression, (58.02 ± 9.52) points for stigma and (31.31 ± 5.85) points for social alienation. Social alienation in patients with haematologic malignancies was positively correlated with stigma (r = 0.500, P < 0.01) and fear of disease progression (r = 0.424, P < 0.01), and fear of disease progression was also positively correlated with stigma (r = 0.405, P < 0.01). Bootstrap test results showed that the mediating effect of stigma on the relationship between fear of disease progression and social alienation in patients with haematological malignancies was 0.159, accounting for 37.5% of the total effect.

Conclusion: The sense of shame plays an intermediary role between fear of disease progression and social alienation in patients with malignant haematological diseases. Clinical nurses should pay attention to the current situation of fear and shame in patients with such diseases and take appropriate intervention measures to reduce the occurrence of negative emotions such as social alienation.