The Relationship Of Hope, Coping Style And Social Support In Patients With Cancer

Cancer has become the most health threatening disease for human. Hope is one of the important components during the cancer treatment. Therefore, identifying the relationship between hope, coping style and social support in the patients with cancer is a meaningful study.Objectives: The purpose of this research is to explore the level of hope in patients with cancer diagnosis during chemotherapy in China, to find whether there is different levels of hope in the patients with various cancer, and to identify the relationship of hope, coping style and social support.Research Methods: 300 subjects who were first-time surgery of cancer were recruited from the inpatient chemotherapy ward in the first and the third affiliated hospitals of Harbin Medical University from December 1^st 2005 to June 31^st 2006. Five groups of patients with stomach, colon, rectum, lung and breast cancer completed the following questionares: the Herth Hope scale, the Jalowiec Coping Scale, social support scale and basic demographic form during their chemotherapy.Results: The average score of hope in patients with cancer was 38.32±4.44.The level of hope had no different in the patients with various cancer (F=3.24, P＞0.05), but income had influence on hope. Hope level increased with income increased. The average score of coping style was 1.57±0.27, the highest score of coping style was optimistic coping style, emotive coping style was the lowest. The average score of social support was 46.26±6.96, for subjective social support was 12.05±3.18, objective social support was 26.57±4.07 and utilization of social support was 7.63±2.23.Although there was no significant correlation between the average score of hope and the average total score of coping style in patients with cancer (r=0.90, P＞0.05), there was significantly positive correlation between hope and optimistic, confrontive, self-reliant and palliative coping style, and negative correlation between hope and emotive, fatalistic and evasive coping style.There was also strong relationship between the average score of hope and average total score of social support, average scores of subjective social support, objective social support and utilization of social support (r=0.20, r=0.23, r=0.17, p＜0.01).Conclusions: The research results showed that the most cancer patients during chemotherapy had higher level of hope. There is no different levels of hope in the patients with various cancer. Identified affecting factor of hope was income: hope level increased with income increased. But age, sex, education, the style of medical payment, chemotherapy times had no influence on hope. Cancer patients had used several coping styles during chemotherapy. More often used coping styles by the patients were as following: optimistic, confrontive, self-reliant and palliative coping style. Emotive, fatalistic and evasive coping styles were less used. Patients with cancer had obtained the relatively higher level of social support.There was no significant relationship between hope and coping in patients with cancer, but there was correlation between hope and optimistic, confrontive, self-reliant, palliative, emotive, fatalistic and evasive coping style.There was also strong relationship between hope and total social support score, scores of subjective social support, objective social support and utilization of social support. It suggests that the better social support patients with cancer get, the higher level of hope they hold. Therefore, nurses should advise patients to use positive coping styles and avoid using negative coping styles, to do their best to use social support to increase the level of hope, and help them build confidence of overcoming diseases, furthermore improve their mental health and promote their quality of life.