Gender and time estimation as novel potent indicators of emotional concerns in cancer patients.

Abstract

e24195 Background: Psychological stress is frequent after a cancer diagnosis. Thus screening is crucial for detecting it. The emotion thermometers (ETs) are validated screening tools and have five dimensions (distress, anxiety, depression, anger, and need‐for‐help). Methods: Time estimation was assessed in 374 chemonaïve patients with solid tumors by evaluating each subject’s prospective estimation of how quickly one minute passed compared to the actual time. ETs were used at the beginning of treatment to evaluate level of psychological stress of each patient. A multivariate analyses of covariance was run for the ETs as dependent variables with the addition of the following covariates: age and time estimation and gender as a fixed factor. Results: There were significant negative correlations between values of ETs and time estimation except anger. Women exhibited significantly faster time estimation than men. Using Pillai’s Trace, we found that there was a significant effect of gender and fast time estimation on reported values of ETs (V = 0.06, F (5,366) = 4.96, p < .001; V = 0.05, F (5,366) = 3.84, p = .002, respectively). The covariate, time estimation, was significantly related to reported values of all ETs. There was also a significant effect of relationship on the gender and reported values of all ETs, except for depression and need-for-help after controlling for the effect of age and time estimation. Planned contrasts revealed that female are significantly more distressed, anxious and less angry when compared to males. Conclusions: Gender and time estimation are novel potent indicators of emotional concerns in cancer patients prior to starting chemotherapy.