Racial and Ethnic Disparities in Post‐Traumatic Stress and Illness Coherence in Breast Cancer Survivors with Comorbid Diabetes

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Melissa Mazor ◽  
Juan P. Wisnivesky ◽  
Mita Goel ◽  
Yael Tobi Harris ◽  
Jenny J. Lin
BMJ Open ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (9) ◽  
pp. e037078
Author(s):  
William Tsai ◽  
Sumaiya Nusrath ◽  
Ruidi Zhu

ObjectivesThis paper aimed to review the experience of psychopathology symptoms (ie, depressive, anxiety and post-traumatic stress) and their social, cognitive and affective correlates among Asian American breast cancer survivors. Studies on psychosocial interventions for reducing psychopathology symptoms were also included in this review.DesignA systematic review was conducted.MethodsPubMed, PsycINFO and Web of Science were searched from database inception to November 2018. Empirical, peer-reviewed articles on adult women of Asian heritage residing in the USA with breast cancer diagnoses were included in this review. The methodological quality of the included articles was coded.ResultsThe search yielded 16 empirical articles, which were all deemed to be of high methodological quality. Eleven studies utilised a quantitative design, two studies utilised a qualitative design and three studies utilised a mixed-methods design. Thirteen were cross-sectional and three were longitudinal in design. Only two intervention studies were identified. Studies showed that Asian American breast cancer survivors endorsed moderate to high levels of depressive symptoms, anxiety and post-traumatic stress symptoms; those who are more acculturated demonstrated lower levels of depressive and anxiety symptoms. Asian American breast cancer survivors with social constraints were more likely to have intrusive thoughts and, in turn, have high levels of psychopathology symptoms. Intervention studies were limited, but the use of community-based participatory research approaches and cultural adaptations were noted strengths of the studies.DiscussionIn addition to discussing clinical implications, we highlight limitations of the literature, including a lack of longitudinal studies and the limited use of standardised diagnostic instruments for assessing psychopathology symptoms among this population. Clarifying the prospective relationships between psychopathology symptoms and their social, cognitive and affective correlates will help inform the development of culturally sensitive psychosocial interventions among Asian American breast cancer survivors.


Cancers ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (10) ◽  
pp. 3000
Author(s):  
Clémence Boscher ◽  
Florence Joly ◽  
Bénédicte Clarisse ◽  
Xavier Humbert ◽  
Jean-Michel Grellard ◽  
...  

Cognitive complaints are common adverse effects in cancer patients. Identifying subjects at risk could make it possible to limit their impact. We aimed to explore the relationship between current cognitive complaints and demographic and psychological factors in a group of breast cancer survivors. Through an online survey, cancer survivors reported current cognitive complaints using the FACT-Cog questionnaire (Perceived Cognitive Impairment) and answered questions about their demographics, lifestyle and cancer-related characteristics. Anxiety, depression, fatigue and post-traumatic stress symptoms were also assessed. We used multivariable logistic regression models to explore the relationships between current cognitive complaints and social and psychological factors. Among the 1393 breast cancer survivors, 47.2% (n = 657) reported current cognitive complaints. Chemotherapy (OR = 2.26, 95%CI = 1.67–3.05), age (OR21-44 vs. >65 = 0.14, 95%CI = 0.07–0.27), sleep difficulties (ORnever vs. often = 2.41, 95%CI = 1.47–3.95), frequency of psychotropic treatments (ORnever vs. >1/week = 1.70, 95%CI = 1.23–2.36), post-traumatic stress symptoms (OR = 2.05, 95%CI = 1.57–2.69) and employment status (ORfull-time or part-time vs. sick leave = 1.64, 95%CI = 1.08–2.49) were strongly associated with current cognitive complaints. In this large study, about half of breast cancer survivors reported cognitive complaints, particularly after chemotherapy. Some risk factors should be detected early to reduce persistent cognitive complaints after cancer: mainly sleep difficulties, post-traumatic stress symptoms and psychotropic medications.


2020 ◽  
Vol 20 (S4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Nur Hafieza Ismail ◽  
Ninghao Liu ◽  
Mengnan Du ◽  
Zhe He ◽  
Xia Hu

Abstract Background Emotions after surviving cancer can be complicated. The survivors may have gained new strength to continue life, but some of them may begin to deal with complicated feelings and emotional stress due to trauma and fear of cancer recurrence. The widespread use of Twitter for socializing has been the alternative medium for data collection compared to traditional studies of mental health, which primarily depend on information taken from medical staff with their consent. These social media data, to a certain extent, reflect the users’ psychological state. However, Twitter also contains a mix of noisy and genuine tweets. The process of manually identifying genuine tweets is expensive and time-consuming. Methods We stream the data using cancer as a keyword to filter the tweets with cancer-free and use post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) related keywords to reduce the time spent on the annotation task. Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) learns the representations of the input to identify cancer survivors with PTSD. Results The results present that the proposed CNN can effectively identify cancer survivors with PTSD. The experiments on real-world datasets show that our model outperforms the baselines and correctly classifies the new tweets. Conclusions PTSD is one of the severe anxiety disorders that could affect individuals who are exposed to traumatic events, including cancer. Cancer survivors are at risk of short-term or long-term effects on physical and psycho-social well-being. Therefore, the evaluation and treatment of PTSD are essential parts of cancer survivorship care. It will act as an alarming system by detecting the PTSD presence based on users’ postings on Twitter.


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