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Original Article
Symptom reporting in cancer patients II
Relations to social desirability, negative affect, and self-reported health behaviors
Article first published online: 20 NOV 2000
DOI: 10.1002/(SICI)1097-0142(19991015)86:8<1609::AID-CNCR32>3.0.CO;2-3
Copyright © 1999 American Cancer Society
1097-0142/asset/cover.gif?v=1&s=a7299bc18f075294c232ade468773cd0672bd470 "Cancer")
Additional Information
How to Cite
Koller, M., Heitmann, K., Kussmann, J. and Lorenz, W. (1999), Symptom reporting in cancer patients II. Cancer, 86: 1609–1620. doi: 10.1002/(SICI)1097-0142(19991015)86:8<1609::AID-CNCR32>3.0.CO;2-3
Publication History
- Issue published online: 20 NOV 2000
- Article first published online: 20 NOV 2000
- Manuscript Accepted: 24 MAY 1999
- Manuscript Revised: 4 FEB 1999
- Manuscript Received: 4 AUG 1998
Funded by
- German Ministery of Health. Grant Number: FB 2-43332-70/6
- German Science Foundation. Grant Number: SFB 297/A8
- Abstract
- Article
- References
- Cited By
Keywords:
- somatic symptoms;
- quality of life;
- health behaviors;
- social desirability;
- negative affect;
- surgical cancer patients
The current study investigated whether social desirability, in addition to negative affect, is a variable that influences cancer patients' symptom reporting and their reporting of self-initiated health behaviors. Patients' reports of symptoms and global quality of life, but not their reports of health behaviors, were strongly associated with social desirability and negative affect, even when objective health and demographic variables were held constant.
Abstract
BACKGROUND
Patients' appraisal of somatic symptoms is correlated with their negative affect. The authors have investigated whether social desirability is associated with patients' symptom and health behavior reporting.
METHODS
One hundred fourteen surgical cancer patients who participated in either an outpatient or an inpatient follow-up care program filled out the European Organization for Research and Treatment of Cancer Quality of Life Questionnaire-C30, the New Social Desirability Scale, and a health behavior checklist.
RESULTS
Patients' reports of somatic symptoms were correlated inversely with social desirability (r = −0.50) and positively with negative affect (r = 0.72). When objective health and demographic variables (e.g., prognosis, adjuvant therapy prior to follow-up, and gender) were entered first in hierarchical multiple regression analyses, social desirability and negative affect accounted for an additional 16% and 36% of the symptom variance, respectively. Similar results were found when global quality of life was the dependent variable. Self-reported health behaviors were explained only through the set of health and demographic variables (14%), and social desirability and negative affect did not account for additional variance. On the average, patients reported that they had a median of 4.7 (out of a list of 21) self-initiated health behaviors, and 11% of the patients admitted to having used unproven therapies.
CONCLUSIONS
Symptom reports do not give a pure picture of patients' health status, but they are strongly correlated with social desirability and negative affect. Detection of such psychologic variables is essential to understanding the dynamics of quality of life. In applied settings, quality-of-life measures should be used together with conventional criteria. As practical experience and scientific understanding grow, the relative positioning of these patient-oriented versus clinic-oriented endpoints will become clear. Cancer 1999;86:1609–20. © 1999 American Cancer Society.