Pain, acceptance of illness, adjustment to life with cancer and coping strategies in prostate cancer patients.

Introduction: Prostate cancer is the second most common type of carcinoma in men. The rate of prostate cancer has increased approximately fivefold lover the last 30 years. The purpose of the study was to evaluate coping strategies, pain management, illness acceptance, and adjustment to cancer in patients diagnosed with prostate carcinoma and the effect of socioeconomic variables on the above-mentioned issues.

Material and methods: The study included 228 patients diagnosed with prostate cancer. The questionnaire interview consisted of demographic questions and four psychometric tests: BPCQ, measuring the influence of factors affecting pain management, CSQ, designed to evaluate pain coping strategies, the AIS questionnaire, measuring disease acceptance, and the Mini-Mac.

Results: Pain locus of control scores in prostate cancer patients are distributed evenly across all three BPCQ subscales. The top mean score was observed in the area of beliefs that powerful others (doctors) control pain. Increased behavioral activity was the most frequently selected coping strategy (mean score = 18.27). The average level of disease acceptance in study patients was 30.39, with a standard deviation of 8.07. The results were differentiated by education ( p = 0.08) and income ( p = 0.012). The most frequently indicated coping strategies were fighting spirit (mean score = 22.46) and positive re-evaluation (mean score = 22.04).

Conclusions: The main belief about pain control in prostate cancer patients is that powerful others (doctors) control pain. The study patients cope with disease constructively. The main socioeconomic variables which differentiate the scores obtained across all tests are income and education.