Relationship Between Quality Of Life And Positive Psychological Characters And Social Support In Patients With Lung Cancer

Objective:This study aimed to assess the functional status in patients with lung cancer, and examine the relationships between functional status and positive psychological characters (hope trait, gratitude) and social support. The study sought to offer theoretical foundations for interventions to improve life quality among lung cancer patients from theperspectives of positive psychology.Methods:The study included 91 patients with pathologicaldiagnosis of primary bronchial lung cancer at Shandong provincial tumor hospital from April,2011 to January,2013.The general situation questionnaire, European Organization for Research and Treatment of Cancer Quality of Life QuestionnaireCore (EORTC QLQ C30), Adult Dispositional Hope Scale (ADHS), Gratitude Questionnaire (GQ) and Perceived Social Support Scale (PSSS)were used to assess the characteristics, quality of life, hope trait, gratitude and social supportof the participants. Statistical analysismethods including descriptive statistics, independent sample t-test, one-way analysis of variance, Pearson correlation analysis and multiple linear regression analysis were conducted by SPSS17.0 software.Results:(1) Physical functioning, role functioningand cognitive functioning of the functional status were different between various demographic characteristicsin lung cancer patients; the difference of emotional functioning and social functioning between different demographic characteristics is not significant.The results of independent sample t-test and ANOVA showed that the difference of physical functioning scores between different marital status were significant, P< 0.05;the difference of role functioning scores between different marital status and clinical TNM stages were statistically significant, P< 0.05;the difference of cognitive functioning between different sex, marital status, working condition and education degree were statistically significant, P< 0.05;the difference of emotional functioning and social functioning between different demographic characteristics is not significant,P> 0.05.(2) The functional status of lung cancer patients was correlated with age, hope trait, gratitude, and social support.Correlation analysis was used to examine the relationships between function status score and age, hope traits, gratitude, and all dimensions of social support. The results showed that age was negatively correlated with the physical functioning(r=-0.213, P < 0.05), which indicated that patients with elder age scores worse in physical functioning subscale; hope trait were positively correlated with social functioning (P< 0.01), which showed that a higher level of hope traits in lung cancer patients was associated with better social functioning; role functioning, emotional function and cognitive function were positively correlated with gratitude and family support, (r= 0.239-326, P< 0.05), which indicated that patients with a higher level of gratitude tend to have better role, emotional and cognitive functioning; friends support and other types of social support were not correlated with function status (P> 0.05).(3)Results of multivariate linear regression analysisThe results of multiple linear regression analysis, by controlling for statistically significant demographic characteristics, indicated that gratitude can predict physical functioning, role functioning, emotional functioning and cognitive functioning (β= 0.27～041, P< 0.05);hope trait can only predict social functioning (β= 0.25, P< 0.05), but this model are close to statistically significant (P= 0.067);family support can predict role functioning (β= 0.31, P< 0.01); friends support and other types of social support cannot predict any subscales of functional status. The model accounted for 11.4%～41.8%of the total variance in functional status.Conclusions:(1)The physical functioning, role functioning and cognitive functioning in patients with lung cancer were different between different demographic characteristics; the differences of emotional functioning and social functioning between different demographic characteristics were not significant.(2) The age of the lung cancer patients was negatively correlated with functional status; hope trait, gratitude and family support were positively correlated with the functional status in patients with lung cancer.(3) Gratitude predicted physical functioning, role functioning, emotional functioning and cognitive functioning in lung cancer patients; hope traits can be used to predict the social functioning only; family support can predict the role functioning.