ABSTRACT
In a case control study which formed one arm of a large, population-based investigation of colorectal cancer incidence, aetiology and survival. 'The Melbourne Colorectal Cancer Study', among others, 22 psychosocially orientated questions were asked by personal interview of 637 histologically confirmed new cases of colorectal cancer and 714 age/sex frequency matched community controls, from Melbourne (population 2.81 million). Self-reported childhood or adult life 'unhappiness' was statistically significantly more common among the cancer cases, while 'unhappiness with retirement' was similarly distributed among cases and controls. Questions which were formulated to test a particular personality profile as a cancer risk, and which included the elements of denial and repression of anger and of other negative emotions, a commitment to prevailing social norms resulting in the external appearance of a 'nice' or 'good' person, a suppression of reactions which may offend others and the avoidance of conflict, showed a statistically significant discrimination between cases and controls. The risk of colorectal cancer with respect to this model was independent of the previously found risk factors of diet, beer intake, and family history of colorectal cancer, and was also independent of other potential confounding factors of socioeconomic level, marital status, religion and country of birth. Although the results must be interpreted with caution, the data are consistent with the hypothesis that this personality type may play a role in the clinical expression of colorectal cancer and merits further study.
Subject(s)
Adenocarcinoma/psychology , Colorectal Neoplasms/psychology , Personality Assessment , Personality Development , Psychophysiologic Disorders/psychology , Sick Role , Adenocarcinoma/mortality , Aged , Case-Control Studies , Colorectal Neoplasms/mortality , Denial, Psychological , Depression/psychology , Female , Humans , Interview, Psychological , Male , Object Attachment , Psychophysiologic Disorders/mortality , Repression, Psychology , Risk Factors , Social Conformity , Survival Rate , VictoriaSubject(s)
Breast Neoplasms/psychology , Gender Identity , Grief , Identification, Psychological , Mastectomy/psychology , Body Image , Female , HumansSubject(s)
Neoplasms/psychology , Psychophysiologic Disorders , Adult , Affect , Depression , Family , Female , Frustration , Humans , Interpersonal Relations , Lung Neoplasms/psychology , MMPI , Male , Object Attachment , Parent-Child Relations , Perception , Personality , Repression, Psychology , RiskABSTRACT
The psychosocial questionnaire compiled by C. B. Bahnson and M. B. Bahnson and adapted for the German-speaking area was used to question 40 female cancer patients (30 mammary, 6 gastric and 4 pulmonary carcinomata) aged between 36 and 64 years and 40 control subjects selected by the matched pairs method. The cross section examination showed significant differences (p less than or equal to 0.05) between cancer patients and control subjects on single variate examination in 10 individual variables. Discriminant analysis (multivariate examination) revealed a discriminant function of 12 variables which enabled the classification of the entire collective of subjects with 95 percent accuracy in the carcinoma and control groups. Our results confirm largely the hypotheses developed in the USA.