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Cancer-related posttraumatic growth and posttraumatic stress: how are they connected and what are their correlates?

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Abstract

Purpose

Cancer is a stressful life event that can lead to specific posttraumatic reactions. Posttraumatic stress symptoms (PTSS) and posttraumatic growth (PTG) are two main posttraumatic reactions that are related to each other, and both have different correlates.

Methods

The linearity of the relationship between PTG and PTSS and the different socio-demographic, cancer-related, emotional, and psychological correlates were analyzed in patients with cancer (N = 126).

Results

The relationship between PTG and PTSS was found to be more curvilinear than linear. PTSS was more strongly related to psychological factors (e.g., anxious preoccupation, hope-helplessness, and resilience) while PTG was strongly related to existential factors (e.g., self-transcendence and religiosity).

Conclusion

The results show that cancer-related PTSS and PTG are specifically related constructs which are related differently to particular correlates. Specifically, the greatest differences were observed in the psychological variables. In the early phases, therapeutic interventions focused on variables related to PTSS can lead to the reduction of PTSS. In follow-up phases, the therapeutic intervention focused on the increase of the level of variables related to PTG can help the development of PTG.

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Data availability

The data, additional tables, and descriptions that support the findings of this study are openly available in osf repository at osf.io/npfsj/.

Code availability

The analytical script can be found at osf.io/npfsj/.

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Funding

This study was supported by the Research Grant Agency of the Ministry of Education, Science, Research and Sport of the Slovak Republic and the Slovak Academy of Science [VEGA 1/0305/18] as well as the Slovak Research and Development Agency [APVV-17–0418].

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Psychology, Faculty of Arts, University of Presov, 17. Novembra 1, 080 01, Presov, Slovakia

    Gabriel Baník & Lenka Vargová

  2. Department of Psychology, Faculty of Arts, Trnava University, Hornopotočná 32, 918 43, Trnava, Slovakia

    Mária Dědová

Authors
  1. Gabriel Baník
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  2. Mária Dědová
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  3. Lenka Vargová
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Contributions

GB: conceptualization, project administration, methodology, resources, formal analysis, data curation, writing—original draft, writing—review and editing. LV: data curation, writing—original draft, writing—review and editing. MD: investigation, resources, funding acquisition, writing—review and editing.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Gabriel Baník.

Ethics declarations

Ethics approval

Study was approved by the Ethics Committee at Trnava University (resolution No. 1/2018).

Consent to participate

All participants have provided their written informed consent.

Consent for publication

Not applicable.

Conflict of interest

The authors declare no competing interests.

Supplementary information

Data, analytical script, and other materials supported the results of this study could be found at osf.io/npfsj/.

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Baník, G., Dědová, M. & Vargová, L. Cancer-related posttraumatic growth and posttraumatic stress: how are they connected and what are their correlates?. Support Care Cancer 30, 8183–8192 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00520-022-07252-7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00520-022-07252-7

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