Abstract
PurposeTo investigate the impact of personal goal disturbance after cancer diagnosis on well-being over time, and a possible moderating role of goal adjustment tendencies and actual goal adjustment strategies.MethodsParticipants (n = 186) were interviewed three times: within a month, 7 months (treatment period), and 18 months (follow-up period) after being diagnosed with colorectal cancer. Participants were asked to freely mention three to ten personal goals. Goal disturbance was assessed by the patients’ ratings of the amount of hindrance experienced in goal achievement. Goal adjustment tendencies were assessed using the Goal Disengagement and Re-engagement Scale and actual goal adjustment (i.e. goal flexibility) by the number of goal adjustment strategies used. Outcome measures were overall quality of life and emotional functioning, assessed with the cancer-specific EORTC QLQ-C30.ResultsHierarchical regression analyses showed that goal disturbance predicted well-being over both the treatment and the follow-up period. Additionally, the negative effect of goal disturbance on well-being was less for patients who scored higher on goal disengagement and not significant for patients who were more flexible in their use of actual goal adjustment strategies.ConclusionsThe present study is the first to test the theoretical assumption that goal adjustment is beneficial after goal disturbance. Whereas these findings need to be confirmed in future research, the possibly beneficial role of goal disengagement and actual goal adjustment strategies can be used for psychological interventions.
Highlights
Goals, their pursuit and achievement, are important as they give meaning and direction to people’s lives [1, 2]
The present study set out to longitudinally investigate the theoretical assumptions that goal disturbance negatively impacts well-being, and that goal adjustment may reduce the adverse effect of goal disturbance on well-being
The results show that, in line with our hypothesis, higher levels of goal disturbance predicted lower levels of wellbeing between 1 and 7 months post-diagnosis, as well as between 7 and 18 months post-diagnosis
Summary
The present study is the first to test the theoretical assumption that goal adjustment is beneficial after goal disturbance. Whereas these findings need to be confirmed in future research, the possibly beneficial role of goal disengagement and actual goal adjustment strategies can be used for psychological interventions
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