[Comorbility between anxiety and depression in patients with carcinoid tumors]. / Comorbilità di ansia e depressione nei pazienti con tumori carcinoidi.

BACKGROUND: People who have malignant cancer are plagued with a variety of symptoms that often severely limit their lives. In the case of carcinoid tumors, symptoms of anxiety and depression are two manifestations often associated with disturbances produced by the tumor itself and the chemicals that the tumor secretes. The aim of this study was to compare the incidence of these symptoms for gastro-entero-pancreatic (GEP) tumors and non-gastro-entero-pancreatic (non-GEP). METHODS: Patients with GEP and patients with non-GEP completed the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS). HADS and all of its subscales were analyzed. RESULTS: Patients with GEP tended to have higher average total scores on the HADS-D than those with non-GEP (p<0.08), and items in which the difference between GEP and non-GEP were statistically significant were anhedonia (p<0.05), a reduced ability to laugh and have fun (p<0.05), and the feeling of hopelessness (p<0.05). No significant differences emerged, however, in HADS-T and HADS-A scores. CONCLUSIONS: On the basis of these findings, patients with GEP are affected more than patients with non-GEP with increased levels of depressive and anxiety symptoms. What is difficult to determine, however, is whether these symptoms are related to hormone overproduction, or whether they are related to tumor-related emotional distress.

West vs. West like East vs. West? A comparison between Italian and US American context sensitivity and Fear of Isolation.

Easterners tend to process information more holistically than Westerners. Kim and Markman (J Exp Soc Psychol 42(3):350-364, 2006) suggest that these differences are rooted in higher chronic levels of Fear of Isolation (FOI) for those cultures that process information more holistically. The goal of this study was to determine if these differences and their suggested cause could be found with two different Western cultures. Testing Italian (IT) and US American (US) adults, we found that IT participants processed information more holistically and had a higher chronic level of FOI than US participants; furthermore, the manipulation of FOI affected context sensitivity more for IT than for US participants. The results demonstrate that IT participants were more similar to previous research with Eastern populations than with Western populations (Kim and Markman in J Exp Soc Psychol 42(3):350-364, 2006) and indicate a within-Western culture difference for reasoning styles and support the hypothesis that this difference is due to different chronic levels of FOI.