A qualitative exploration of fear of cancer recurrence in Turkish cancer survivors who were referred for colposcopy.

We aimed to qualitatively explore factors related to fear of cancer recurrence in women who had a risk of cervical cancer relapse/metastasis and to identify the psychological effect of gynaecological examination and colposcopy in cancer survivors. We conducted the present descriptive study with a qualitative design based on the thematic analysis approach on ten women who under suspicion of new cancer and were admitted to the Gynaecological Oncology Polyclinic of Akdeniz University for colposcopy between July and October 2017 via in-depth interviews. As a result of the interviews, we identified three main themes: colposcopy-related fear, emotions associated with fear of cancer recurrence, and fear of being diagnosed with cancer. Moreover it was determined that women experienced a fear of death, fear of family being affected, fear of stigmatisation by society, and fear of not coping with the treatment process. We found that women with cancer history and undergoing colposcopy because of abnormal cervical cytology in routine oncology controls experienced a significant fear of cancer recurrence. We found that gynaecological examination and colposcopy caused anxiety in patients. Healthcare professions should be aware and help women to cope with the fear of cancer recurrence in the colposcopy process and should determine the social care needs of these patients.

A prevalence and psychometric study on fear of cancer in women with abnormal cervical cytology undergoing colposcopy.

OBJECTIVE: To determine the levels of fear of cancer in women who were referred for colposcopy and to determine validity and reliability of the Cancer Worry Scale (CWS) in gynaecology patients. METHODS: The study was conducted between March-November 2017 with 200 women at the Gynaecologic Oncology Clinic at Akdeniz University Hospital in Turkey. Reliability analysis, confirmatory factor analyzes, and multidimensional sum-score estimation were used for psychometric analyzes. One-way ANOVA and independent samples t-test were also used. RESULTS: Total score for the CWS of the participants was determined as 20.05 ± 7.87 in colposcopy patients. Marital status, information about the Papanicolaou (Pap) smear test and colposcopy, and fear of colposcopy were strongly associated with fear of cancer. We determined that a one-factor structure emerged for the scale and that the total contribution of this factor to the explained variance was 53.35%. CFA was applied to obtain additional evidence of structural validity in line with the scores obtained from the scale. The overall Cronbach's alpha coefficient of the scale was 0.87. CONCLUSIONS: Our study revealed that levels of fear of cancer were high in women who were referred for colposcopy. Furthermore, the CWS was determined as a valid and reliable tool to measure the fear of cancer in women undergoing cervical screening/follow-up for abnormal cytology.