A longitudinal study of post-traumatic growth and psychological distress in colorectal cancer survivors
Journal article
Occhipinti, Stefano, Chambers, Suzanne, Lepore, Stephen J., Aitken, Joanne and Dunn, Jeffery. (2015). A longitudinal study of post-traumatic growth and psychological distress in colorectal cancer survivors. PLoS One. 10(9), pp. 1-12. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0139119
Authors | Occhipinti, Stefano, Chambers, Suzanne, Lepore, Stephen J., Aitken, Joanne and Dunn, Jeffery |
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Abstract | The stability of post-traumatic growth over time and the relationship between post-traumatic growth and traditional distress outcomes remains unclear. We tracked post-traumatic growth in a population-based sample of colorectal cancer patients from soon after diagnosis to five years subsequently to assess the heterogeneity of a post-traumatic growth response to cancer over time and describe the simultaneous and longitudinal relationships between post-traumatic growth and psychological distress. 1966 colorectal patients who were five months post diagnosis were assessed six times over a five year period. There was considerable heterogeneity associated with both psychological distress and benefit finding scores over time. However, both for benefit finding and psychological distress, the variation in individual scores suggested an underlying positive linear trend and both lagged and lagged change components. Specifically, benefit finding and psychological distress are mutual leading indicators of each other. First, benefit finding served as a leading indicator of distress, in that increases in reported benefit finding from year to year predicted higher future increases in psychological distress. As well, in an inverse relationship, psychological distress served as a leading indicator of benefit finding, such that increases in reported distress from year to year predicted lower future increases in benefit finding. Post-traumatic growth may reflect patients coping efforts to enhance perceptions of wellbeing in response to escalating cancer–related threats, acting as harbinger of increasing trajectories of psychological distress. This explanation is consistent with a cognitive dissonance response in which threats to the integrity of the self then lead to a tendency to accentuate positive aspects of the self. |
Keywords | post-traumatic growth ; psychological distress ; colorectal cancer |
Year | 01 Jan 2015 |
Journal | PLoS One |
Journal citation | 10 (9), pp. 1-12 |
Publisher | Public Library of Science |
ISSN | 1932-6203 |
Digital Object Identifier (DOI) | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0139119 |
Web address (URL) | https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0139119 |
Open access | Open access |
Research or scholarly | Research |
Page range | 1-12 |
Publisher's version | License File Access Level Open |
Output status | Published |
Publication dates | |
Online | 29 Sep 2015 |
Publication process dates | |
Accepted | 09 Sep 2015 |
Deposited | 22 May 2024 |
Additional information | © 2015 Occhipinti et al. This is an open |
The original study was funded by Cancer | |
Place of publication | United States |
https://acuresearchbank.acu.edu.au/item/90819/a-longitudinal-study-of-post-traumatic-growth-and-psychological-distress-in-colorectal-cancer-survivors
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Publisher's version
OA_Chambers_2015_A_longitudinal_study_of_post_traumatic_growth.pdf | |
License: CC BY 4.0 | |
File access level: Open |
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