Young Cancer Patients Suffers More Pressures about Mental Health
- Background:
Patients diagnosed with cancer could suffer heavy mental pressure. Studies have shown that depressions are highly related to oropharyngeal, thyroid, breast, and lung cancers. Meanwhile, mental illness and disorders are more frequently observed in young adults who are initially facing adults’ life. This study fitted associations between mental health and cancer diagnoses and compared the various relationships among different age groups.
- Methods:
Data used in this study, called Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS), is collected by the Centers for Disease Control of the United States via landline telephones and cell phones. Data analyzed in this study were collected in 2019 nationally from 53 states. In the study, relationships between depression disorder with cancer diagnoses (model 1) and self-reported mental status with cancer diagnoses (model 2) are calculated by univariate and multivariate analyses. Gender, age, race are controlled as confounders in the study. Two additional models are fitted by adding an interaction term calculated by cancer diagnoses times age groups. All analyses are finished in R.
- Results:
418268 records are used in the analyses. Depression disorders are clearly related to cancer diagnoses. Among people who diagnosed with any type of cancer, the odds of having depression is 1.41 (95%CI: 1.336, 1.448) (increased to 9.72 (3.30, 28.67) by adjusting interaction) times of the odds among people who were not diagnosed with cancer adjusted with gender, age, and races. A similar association was found by setting ‘How many days during the past 30 days was your mental health not good(including stress, depression, and emotion problems)’ as an outcome variable. People who were diagnosed with cancer were about 1.00 (95%CI: 0.832, 1.166) (increased to 7.72 (3.69, 11.75) by adjusting interaction) day more to have bad mental symptoms on average compared with people who were not diagnosed with cancer. Besides, from the coefficients of the two multivariate models, a decreasing trajectory could be found while the age group increasing, which indicates that younger adults are more likely to suffer depression or have more time staying in bad mental status. Models with interactions between cancer diagnoses and age groups show that a huge intercept of 2.95 (p = 0.42) days are added in diagnosed people between 25 and 29 years old. The same pattern was not found when the outcome was set as “having depression disorder”. However, by adjusting the measurement effect of the age factor, coefficients of exposure increased in both models mentioned above. The effect of gender equals to female on mental status in the two models is both positive and controlled.
- Conclusion:
Cancer diagnoses are positively related to bad mental health status. Younger cancer patients are more easily to have bad mental health status than old adults. This study shows the importance of implementing mental health cares for cancer patients, especially for young adults. Further study could focus on the reason for the emerged mental problems. Is there a specific symptom, like pain, that causes the problem? Or are the problems caused by the social-economic pressure of the patients? Besides, the time points of the existence of the mental illness after diagnoses are also important to both adjusting the relationship and prevention measures.