Psychological factors increase the risk of ovarian cancer

Abstract

This study evaluated whether psychological stress increases the incidence of ovarian cancer. A literature search of the electronic databases PubMed and Web of Science from the date of inception to August 2022 was undertaken. Studies with data on psychosocial factors associated with ovarian cancer incidence were included in this study. A random-effect model meta-analysis was undertaken to estimate these data. We used subgroup analysis to adjust for heterogeneity. A total of 4 articles, 10 sets of data, 8 cohort studies, and 2 case–control studies from 682 records were included in this review. Meta-analyses of the included cohort study subgroups suggested that psychological factors increase the risk of ovarian cancer (effect size = 1.37, 95% CI: 1.20–1.53); the subgroup of case–control studies suggested that psychological factors did not increase ovarian cancer risk (effect size = 0.84, 95% CI: 0.70–0.98). These findings indicate that psychological stress is a possible new risk factor for ovarian cancer.

Prospero registration number: CRD42022357983

IMPACT STATEMENT

• What is already known on this subject? Psychological stress has been shown to increase the risk of many diseases. The relationship between psychological stress and the incidence of ovarian cancer has not been confirmed.

• What do the results of this study add? The effect of psychological stress on the risk of ovarian cancer was estimated using meta-analysis as an overall ratio.

• What are the implications of these findings for clinical practice and/or further research? Relaxing psychological stress and appropriate psychotherapy in clinical settings can help reduce the risk of ovarian cancer.

Keywords:

• Ovarian cancer
• stress
• psychological factors
• incidence
• psychosomatic medicine
• meta-analysis

Declarations

This manuscript was written according to the meta-analysis writing guidelines PRISMA.

Author contributions

All authors contributed to the study's conception and design. Material preparation, data collection and analysis were performed by Shuo Geng, Xiaoyu Zhu and Yadi Wang. Expertise in psychology was provided by Xu Zhang. Statistical technical support was provided by Yingchen Wang. The first draft of the manuscript was written by Shuo Geng, and all authors commented on previous versions of the manuscript. Manuscript organisation was performed by Yingchen Wang. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

The authors declare that no funds, grants, or other support were received during the preparation of this manuscript.