TITLE:
Psychosocial Risk Factors of Cancer Diseases: How Specific Are They?
AUTHORS:
Shulamith Kreitler, Michal M. Kreitler, Frida Barak
KEYWORDS:
Colorectal Cancer; Personality; Cognitive Orientation; Risk Factors
JOURNAL NAME:
Open Journal of Social Sciences,
Vol.1 No.6,
December
30,
2013
ABSTRACT:
The paper presents the psychological
correlates of colorectal cancer patients in the framework of the cognitive
orientation (CO) theory. According to this cognitive-motivational approach the
major factors responsible for disease are a pathogene, background factors and
a physiological program implementing the disease processes. Psychological
factors form a part of the background factors. They consist of specific
cognitive contents forming a motivational disposition, representing four types
of beliefs referring to specific contents. The cognitive contents are
assessed by a CO questionnaire. Previous studies showed that the CO
questionnaire differentiated significantly between colorectal cancer patients
and healthy controls in two samples, as well as between both groups and Crohn
patients who have potential malignancy. The present study was designed to
examine the specificity of the psychological variables characterizing colorectal
cancer. The CO questionnaire was administered to male colorectal cancer
patients and patients with prostate cancer and male healthy controls, and to
female colorectal cancer patients, patients with breast cancer and healthy
female controls. In both cases the scores of the CO questionnaire
differentiated between the colorectal cancer patients and the two other
groups, but there were no differences between the prostate cancer patients or
the breast cancer patients and the healthy controls. These findings confirm the
hypothesis that the CO variables of colorectal cancer are disease specific and
may be considered as psychological risk factors for colorectal cancer.