Fear of recurrence in women with cancer

Abstract

After surviving cancer, the announcement of the end of treatments is generally experienced as a relief. However, post-cancer period is not always lived as a harmoniously as hoped.This time is sometimes characterized by different disorders (e.g. depression) for which the patient still has to be under medical supervision. Concerns about the disease and its risks persist beyond the end of treatment, and increases significantly during control visits, with fear of a recurrence (Stanton et al., 2015). It is possible to evaluate these psychological difficulties induced by the oncological context, such as the fear of recurrence which, in its severest form presented by excessive and pervasive fear that the cancer may return taking into account the real risk (Savard, 2010).The main objective of this research project will be to examine the psychological impacts of fear of recidivism in women with cancer. More specifically, it will be necessary to verify whether this risk can be tolerated and endured, or if it is experienced as extremely painful and unbearable, at the point of generating generalized anxiety. Analyses will focus on the role of socio-demographic and medical variables, but also and above all on the role of the psychological variables responsible for maintaining positive or negative emotions in the regulation of the fear of recurrence. The aim of this poster is to present the methodology and the statistical analyses envisaged in this thesis work. The analysis of the protective factors or predictors of a fear of recidivism will be conducted from multivariate regression models.