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Cancer Pain and Fatigue – Reducing Them With Positive Mental and Emotional Attitude

Mar 27, 2009 by TacticularCancer.com

Findings of Study

The study, which was published in the July 2008 issue of the Journal of Pain and Symptom Management, found that those participants who had higher levels of mastery reported feeling less severe pain as well as lower levels of fatigue.

On top of that, participants who had a more optimistic outlook also experienced less severe pain, although in this case, higher levels of optimism did not translate to less severe fatigue.

These findings were adjusted for other important factors, such as age, gender, cancer location, stage of the disease, and other health issues which may be afflicting the participants.

Additional findings of the study include less severe cancer pain for those patients who were older and those with fewer health issues on top of their cancer diagnosis, while the latter group also reported lower levels of fatigue.

Further, the study team reported not much difference in the degree of optimism and mastery detected between patients whose cancers were detected early and those who were suffering from late stage disease. This is an important point as it rules out, to some degree, the possibility that optimistic attitudes may have been caused by less severe disease and pain, rather than vice versa.

Along similar lines, it was found that the number of additional health issues on top of cancer did not seem to influence the baseline levels of optimism and mastery of the subjects.

What Can Be Done

The study team suggested that clinicians could look out for such traits in cancer patients, and work with them to help them use these traits to better cope with their cancer symptoms.

“These findings underscore the need for physicians and nurses involved in the care of cancer patients to recognize, encourage, promote, and take advantage of these traits in their patients to help them more effectively manage their cancer care, so that they ultimately can achieve a better quality of life during the sequelae of the cancer experience,” the study team concluded.

On a personal level, cancer patients and their loved ones need to do more to help improve the emotional outlooks of cancer sufferers. Read jokes, watch comedies, laugh, hang out with and talk to positive people, pray, meditate, go for counseling – do anything to raise one’s levels of optimism and mastery.

According to the finds of this Michigan study, this can help one deal with cancer pain and fatigue. In addition, much as some factions of conventional medicine may disagree, there are many of us who actually believe that such an outlook can in fact improve one’s chances of defeating the disease.

Main Source

Patient Optimism and Mastery—Do They Play a Role in Cancer Patients` Management of Pain and Fatigue? (http://www.jpsmjournal.com/article/S0885-3924(08)00058-4/abstract)

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