Factors Affecting Perceptions of Disability and Self-Rated Health Among Older Adult, Long-Term Cancer Survivors.

OBJECTIVE: This article examines the relative importance of cancer-related and noncancer illness factors as they predict the health quality of life among older adult, long-term cancer survivors. Specifically, it examines the effects that continuing cancer symptoms and comorbidities have on functional difficulties and how they in turn affect perceptions of disability and self-rated health. METHOD: Data from an National Cancer Institute (NCI)-funded, tumor registry-based 10-year study of 321 older adult (age 60+), long-term (5+years post diagnosis) survivors of breast colorectal and prostate cancer are examined using regression analyses. RESULTS: The analyses documented the independent effects of both cancer-related and age-related health factors as they contribute to explaining functional difficulties, perceptions of disability and self-rated health. Gender and racial differences in health quality of life were also identified. DISCUSSION: The findings suggest that geriatricians, geriatric nurses, and clinical gerontologists who work with cancer survivorsneed to be aware of the ways in which both cancer and noncancer illness factors work together in producing threats to health quality of life through the extent and nature of functional impairments.

Personality and psychological distress among older adult, long-term cancer survivors.

This research examines a model of how personality (Five-Factor Model) is related to adjustment to cancer in later life in terms of the presence of continuing cancer-related worry and depression among older adult, long-term cancer survivors. Data from an NCI-funded study with 275 older adult (age 60+), long-term (5+ years) survivors of breast, prostate, and colorectal cancer were examined. Regression analyses identified neuroticism as the strongest predictor of cancer-related worry along with continuing cancer-related symptoms. For depression, three personality dimensions (neuroticism, conscientiousness, and agreeableness) were significant predictors. Findings suggest the importance of considering the central role that survivors' personality characteristics play in understanding cancer-related worries and depression. Understanding these dispositional characteristics is key for social workers and health-care practitioners in counseling survivors experiencing these common mental health effects.