|
Abstract
|
OBJECTIVE: Cancer has become the leading cause of death worldwide. The coexisting psychiatric comorbidities of cancer patients has attracted the attention of health professionals. Cancer also poses a risk for suicide. There is still insufficient research in this field. This study aimed to investigate the profile of psychological distress and suicidality and their associations among the ambulatory patients with cancers.
METHODS: The cross-sectional survey using a structured interview was conducted on 399 cancer outpatients to collect basic information and assess psychological distress (by revised five-item Brief Symptom Rating Scale, BSRS-5R) and suicidality. The logistic regression analysis was performed to test the association between recent suicidality and various psychological distress.
RESULTS: A higher percentage of the total participants had tumors that were gastrointestinal (31.1%), non-metastatic (58.4%) and had a duration since diagnosis that was less than one year (52.1%). Among the participants, the prevalence rate was 13.5% for psychiatric morbidity and 2.3% for one-week suicidal ideation (SI). The one-week SI had significant correlations with the future intent to suicide (r=.467), lifetime SA (r=.34), inferiority (r=1.76), and anxiety (r=1.44). Among the five items of distress, inferiority had the highest correlation with the general psychopathology defined by BSRS-5R (r=.77). The logistic regression analysis on one-week SI indicated that only inferiority was a significant predictor for SI.
CONCLUSION: Inferiority was significantly associated with past and future suicidality and could significantly predict one-week SI. Future research investigating the underlying mechanism from inferiority to suicide may provide an important approach to suicide prevention for people with cancer.
Language: zh |