Attributions of Control, Experienced Meaning, and Psychosocial Well-being in Patients with Advanced Cancer

Abstract

Despite the existence of aggressive symptom-management programs for late-stage adult cancer patients, few researchers have identified the critical targets for psychosocial support in that population. As a result, clinicians often must rely on global theories of support alone to guide their interactions with such patients. The resent study examined the effects of attributed control over one's health and experienced meaning of one's situation on anxiety and self-esteem in 57 adults with advanced cancer. Both attributed control and experienced meaning constitute potential targets for therapeutic interaction. The author hypothesized that (1) external attributions of control and higher levels of experienced meaning protect self-esteem and reduce anxiety and (2) when left unmediated by either externalized control or perceived meaning, the longer the experience with incurable cancer, the higher the level of anxiety and the lower the level of self-esteem. The extent to which the patients attributed meaning to their situation was a significant predictor of both higher self-esteem and lower anxiety. However, neither externalized control nor longer experience with cancer predicted levels of either anxiety or self-esteem. These results suggest that a sense of meaning in late-stage disease is an important focus for therapeutic exchange and thus deserves systematic attention in future studies.