Psychological Distress in Breast Cancer Patients during the Italian COVID-19 Pandemic

Maria Rosa Stanizzo, Lorys Castelli (), Cristina Di Nardo, Monica Brunetti, Corrado De Sanctis and Ada Ghiggia
Additional contact information
Maria Rosa Stanizzo: Breast Unit, Department of Gynecology and Obstetrics, AOU Città della Salute e della Scienza, 10126 Turin, Italy
Lorys Castelli: Department of Psychology, University of Turin, 10124 Turin, Italy
Cristina Di Nardo: Clinical Psychology Unit, AOU Città della Salute e della Scienza, 10126 Turin, Italy
Monica Brunetti: Breast Unit, Department of Gynecology and Obstetrics, AOU Città della Salute e della Scienza, 10126 Turin, Italy
Corrado De Sanctis: Breast Unit, Department of Gynecology and Obstetrics, AOU Città della Salute e della Scienza, 10126 Turin, Italy
Ada Ghiggia: Department of Life Sciences, University of Trieste, 34128 Trieste, Italy

IJERPH, 2022, vol. 19, issue 18, 1-7

Abstract: Background. The emergency caused by the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic exacerbated psychological distress. Our aim was to investigate the impact of breast cancer on patients’ lives during the Italian lockdown. Methods. Sixty-five female breast cancer patients were studied, assessing the level of psychological distress with the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS) and the impact of the cancer diagnosis (Impact of Event Scale-Revised—IES—R). In addition, we compared these data with a matched group of breast cancer patients enrolled in 2019. Results. Patients enrolled in 2020 had statistically higher levels of anxious symptomatology and higher levels of traumatic symptomatology due to the cancer diagnosis. A mediation analysis was performed to determine how the experience of distress due to COVID-19 negatively impacted the level of anxiety and amplified the impact of the diagnosis with a significant increase in traumatic symptoms. Conclusions. Considering the vulnerability of these patients and the serious and novel situation that the healthcare system is currently facing, we would like to point out the importance of structured and organised psychological support for these patients.

Keywords: breast cancer; psycho-oncology; COVID-19; post-traumatic stress symptoms; psychological distress (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/19/18/11433/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/19/18/11433/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:19:y:2022:i:18:p:11433-:d:912255

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().