METHODS: Overall, 307 male and female adolescents (aged 13-18 y old) living in 9 private orphanages located in Klang Valley, Malaysia, participated in this cross-sectional study. Brief COPE scale and Depression, Anxiety and Stress Scale-21 were used as the main instruments in the current study.
RESULTS: The results of the current study showed female adolescents and participants with a higher level of education were more likely to experience stress. The results also showed significant differences between boys and girls in using of coping mechanisms in self-distraction (t = -2.39, P = .01), substance use (t = 2.12, P = .03), use of emotional support (t = -2.70, P = .001), humor (t = 2.28, P = .02), and religion (t = -2.19, P = .02). Denial, venting, religion, humor, planning, and active coping were identified as predictors of stress among participants.
DISCUSSION: The results showed a high prevalence of stress and a negative coping pattern among participants. The finding of the current study also showed the urgency of taking immediate action to reduce stress and improve coping methods among Malaysian institutional adolescents.
MATERIALS AND METHODS: This pilot cross-sectional survey was conducted among breast cancer survivors (n=40) who were members of Breast Cancer Support Group Centre Johor Bahru. A validated self-administered questionnaire was used to identify the relationships between socio-demography, medical characteristics and HR-QOL of the participants.
RESULTS: Living with family and completion of treatment were significant predictive factors of self-rated QOL, while living with family and ever giving birth significantly predicted satisfaction with health and physical health. Psychological health had moderate correlations with number of children and early cancer stage. Survivors' higher personal income (>MYR4,500) was the only significant predictor of social relationship, while age, income more than MYR4,500 and giving birth significantly predicted environment domain score.
CONCLUSIONS: The findings suggested the survivors coped better in all four HR-QOL domains if they were married, lived with family, had children and were employed.
MATERIALS AND METHODS: Data were collected using questionnaires (demographic questionnaire, Medical characteristics, Memorial Symptom Assessment Scale (MSAS) and Brief COPE scales and analyzed for demographic, and disease-related variable effects on symptom prevalence, severity, distress and coping strategies.
RESULTS: Symptom prevalence was relatively high and ranged from 14.9% for swelling of arms and legs to 88.1% for lack of energy. This latter was the highest rated symptom in the study. The level of distress was found to be low in three domains. Problem-focused coping strategies were found to be more commonly employed compared to emotion-focused strategies, demonstrating significant associations with sex, age group, educational levels and race. However, there was a positive correlation between emotion-focused strategies and physical and psychological distress, indicating that patients would choose emotion-focused strategies when symptom distress increased.
CONCLUSIONS: These findings demonstrate that high symptom prevalence rates and coping strategies used render an improvement in current nursing management. Therefore development of symptoms management groups, encouraging the use of self-care diaries and enhancing the quality of psycho- oncology services provided are to be recommended.
MATERIALS AND METHODS: A quasi-experimental study was conducted at the University Malaya Medical Centre (UMMC) and Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia Medical Centre (UKMMC) over six months. Prostate cancer patients from UMMC received the intervention and patients from UKMMC were taken as controls. The level of depression, anxiety and stress were measured using Depression, Anxiety Stress Scales - 21 (DASS-21).
RESULTS: A total of 77 patients from the UMMC and 78 patients from the UKMMC participated. At the end of the study, 90.9% and 87.2% of patients from the UMMC and UKMMC groups completed the study respectively. There were significant improvements in anxiety (p<0.001, partial ?2=0.198) and stress (p<0.001, partial ?2=0.103) at the end of the study in those receiving muscle training. However, there was no improvement in depression (p=0.956).
CONCLUSIONS: The improvement in anxiety and stress showed the potential of APMRT in the management of prostate cancer patients. Future studies should be carried out over a longer duration to provide stronger evidence for the introduction of relaxation therapy among prostate cancer patients as a coping strategy to improve their anxiety and stress.
METHOD: The clinical trial was conducted at University Malaya Medical Centre between 2006 and 2008. The experimental group underwent a 4-week self management program, and the control group underwent usual care. Two years after the intervention, questionnaires were randomly posted out to the participants.
RESULTS: A total of 51 questionnaires returned. There were statistically differences between groups in psychological, self-care, mobility and participation aspects in PIPP (p<0.05). The experimental group reported having higher confidence to live with breast cancer compared to control group (p<0.05). There were significant between-group changes in anxiety scores at T2 (immediately after intervention) to T4 (two years later), and the differences in anxiety scores within groups between time point T2 and T4 were significantly different (p<0.05).
CONCLUSION: The SAMA program is potentially capable to serve as a model intervention for successful transition to survivorship following breast cancer treatment. The program needs to be further tested for efficacy in a larger trial involving more diverse populations of women completing breast cancer treatment.
METHODS: We used a grounded theory approach to analyze three focus groups conducted between May and August 2010 in Kuala Lumpur. We used random sampling to recruit the informants (n=21), all of whom had earlier participated in the 4 week self-management program held two years previously.
FINDINGS: The women reported positive experience and growth with the self management program. Self-efficacy appears as an important underlying theme for successful experiences. The lack of proactive plans to provide bereavement support to surviving women was a key negative experience.
CONCLUSION: The intervention successfully brought women together to work in close partnership with health professionals on ways to self manage the medical, emotional and role task as they live indefinitely with breast cancer, a new chronic illness. The beneficial effect from the 4 week intervention was expressed by women even at 2 years after the program. Having successfully developed a tightly knitted group, a major oversight was the lack of professional support on bereavement for grieving members when close friends passed away.
MATERIALS AND METHODS: This cross-sectional study involved 168 women diagnosed with breast cancer. The inclusion criteria were age >18 years old, having histologically confirmed breast cancer, and being diagnosed between January 1, 2009 to December 31, 2012. The exclusion criteria were being illiterate and having cognitive impairment. For data collection patients' medical records and the Cancer Behaviour Inventory-Brief (CBI-B) Malay version questionnaire were used. Simple and multiple logistic regression methods were used to analyse the data.
RESULTS: Patients' mean (SD) age was 51.4 (10.8) years old. Most of the patients were Malays, married, diagnosed at stage 2 breast cancer (41%), and completed their breast cancer treatment. The mean score for self-efficacy for coping with breast cancer was 83.67 (95% CI: 81.87, 85.47). The significant factors positively correlated with self-efficacy for coping with breast cancer were higher educational background and a higher family income. However, factors such as a family history of breast cancer and breast surgery reduced the mean score of self-efficacy for coping with breast cancer.
CONCLUSION: The mean score of self-efficacy for coping with breast cancer in this study was moderate. Self-efficacy for coping with breast cancer in Hospital Universiti Sains Malaysia was not adequate among sufferers and improvement is needed probably by providing education to these patients.
METHODS: This study with predictive cross-sectional design was done in 2023. Data was gathered from 398 patients with cancer that was selected with accessible sampling method from cancer center of Mazandaran university of medical sciences (Sari, Iran). Study constructs included the religious and existential wellbeing, cancer fear of progression, Snyder Hope, and quality of life. Analysis of a Moment Structures (AMOS) software (v27) was utilized for all study analyses. Covariance based-structural equation modeling (SEM) was used to assess the mediating role of hope.
RESULTS: The mean age of patients with cancer was 49.14 (SD = 16.16). The results of the direct effect showed a significant positive relationship between religious well-being and hope (B = 0.164, p < .001), and between hope and quality of life (B = 0.212, p < 0.001). Also, significant negative relationship between fear of progression and hope (B = -0.147, p < 0.05) was founded.
CONCLUSION: A significant positive relationship between hope and quality of life, as well as religious well-being and hope, suggests the influential effects of hope and religious well-being on improving quality of life in patients with cancer. Negative relationships between fear of progression and hope conclude that managing fear of progression may be an important factor in increasing hope and improving quality of life in patients with cancer.