Cancer Survivors And Partners More Prone To Anxiety Than Depression

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Main Category: Anxiety / Stress
Also Included In: Cancer / Oncology;??Depression
Article Date: 05 Jun 2013 - 0:00 PDT Current ratings for:
Cancer Survivors And Partners More Prone To Anxiety Than Depression

Long-term cancer survivors are not at a much higher risk of developing depression compared with healthy people, but they are more likely to experience anxiety.

The finding was published today in The Lancet Oncology and outlines that not only are the survivors at risk for anxiety, but their partners face similar levels of depression and higher levels of anxiety than the survivors themselves.

Lead author Alex Mitchell from Leicester General Hospital in the UK said:

"Depression is an important problem after cancer but it tends to improve within 2 years of a diagnosis unless there is a further complication. Anxiety is less predictable and is a cause for concern even 10 years after a diagnosis. However, detection of anxiety has been overlooked compared with screening for distress or depression"

By 2020, the number of people diagnosed with cancer annually is expected to exceed 21 million.

Cancer survivors are living longer - close to 70% of patients live for at least five years after diagnosis, however, not much is known about cancer's impact on the mental health of survivors and their families.

The current study revealed that while levels of depression in adult cancer survivors two years or longer after diagnosis are almost identical to adults with no history of cancer (11.6% vs 10.2%), survivors are significantly more likely to develop anxiety (27%), increasing to 50% likelihood in the 10 years or more after diagnosis.

Additionally, survivors and their partners seem to experience similar levels of depression, but partners seemed to experience even more anxiety than survivors (28% vs. 40.1%).

The meta-analysis and systematic review analyzed 43 comparisons in 27 publications involving close to half a million participants, documenting the prevalence of anxiety and depression in adults with cancer at least two years following diagnosis.

Mitchell concluded:

"Our results suggest that, after a cancer diagnosis, increased rates of anxiety tend to persist in both patients and their relatives. When patients are discharged from hospital care they usually receive only periodic check-ups from their medical teams and this autonomy in the post-acute period can be anxiety provoking.

Further, the provision of rehabilitation and specialist emotional help is currently patchy. Efforts should be made to improve screening for anxiety and increase follow-up support for both survivors and their families."

A similar study conducted in 2007 suggested that partners of cancer survivors are at risk for the same stresses as cancer survivors themselves over the long term. In some cases these partners experienced more quality of life-related effects than the survivors.

Written by Kelly Fitzgerald
Copyright: Medical News Today
Not to be reproduced without permission of Medical News Today

Visit our anxiety / stress section for the latest news on this subject. "Depression and anxiety in long-term cancer survivors compared with spouses and healthy controls: a systematic review and meta-analysis"
Alex J Mitchell, David W Ferguson, John Gill, Jim Paul, Paul Symonds
The Lancet Oncology, 5 June 2013, http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/ S1470-2045(13)70244-4 Please use one of the following formats to cite this article in your essay, paper or report:

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Depression Is Prevalent in Partners of Cancer Patients

Men whose partners were diagnosed with breast cancer were 39% more likely to be hospitalized due to an affective disorder (major depression, bipolar disease, and other serious mood-altering conditions) compared with men whose partners were not diagnosed with breast cancer. These findings were recently published in the journal Cancer.[1]

Caregivers are individuals who provide care to chronically ill or disabled family members or friends.? Helping someone go through a cancer diagnosis, treatment, and recovery requires understanding, encouragement, patience, and energy. Caregivers become part advocate, nurse, organizer, and financial analyst in addition to maintaining their other responsibilities.? Caring for someone with a life-threatening disease can be emotionally and physically draining. Researchers recently conducted a study to evaluate prevalence of mood disorders among partners of women diagnosed with breast cancer.

In this large study in Denmark, researchers evaluated how a diagnosis of breast cancer impacted the mental health of the patient’s male partner—specifically, how often male partners were hospitalized with affective disorders. Data were analyzed from over 1.1 million men who were followed for 13 years. Men included in the analysis were 30 years or older and had been with the same partner for a minimum of five years. All 1.1 million men included in the analysis had no history of hospitalization for an affective disorder.

20,538 partners of the 1.1 million men evaluated were diagnosed with breast cancer.180 men of the 20,538 whose partners were diagnosed with breast cancer were hospitalized with an affective disorder; men whose partners were diagnosed with breast cancer were 39% more likely to be hospitalized with an affective disorder.An increase in likelihood of hospitalization due to an affective disorder was also linked to a partner’s severity of breast cancer, breast cancer recurrence, as well as death due to breast cancer.

Severe depression is clearly a challenge that many partners of women with breast cancer face. Educating patients and their partners about the risk of experiencing mental health challenges as well as providing appropriate depression screening for spouses and caregivers of cancer patients is warranted.

Reference:

[1] Nakaya N, Saito–Nakaya K, Bidstrup PE, et al. Increased risk for severe depression in male partners of women with breast cancer. Cancer [early online publication]. September 27, 2010.

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