Stress Coping and Changes in Health Behavior Among Cancer Survivors: A Report from the American Cancer Society's Study of Cancer Survivors-II (SCS-II)

Abstract

This study used the transactional model of stress and coping to examine the relationship between cancer survivors’ self-reported efforts to manage stress and the adoption of health behaviors across various lifestyle behavior domains. The authors analyzed data of 2,888 cancer survivors from a national, population-based, cross-sectional survey. Cancer survivors who indicated making active efforts to control stress were more likely to make changes in their physical, psychosocial, and preventive health behaviors as compared to cancer survivors who used passive stress-coping approaches. Future interventions aimed at promoting health behaviors among cancer survivors may benefit from incorporating a stress-coping component.

KEYWORDS:

• cancer survivor
• health behaviors
• stress
• coping
• quality of life

Acknowledgments

The American Cancer Society (ACS) Studies of Cancer Survivors (SCS) were funded as an intramural program of research conducted by the ACS Behavioral Research Center. The findings from the present study were presented as a poster at the Fifth Biennial Cancer Survivorship Research Conference: Recovery and Beyond, Washington, DC, June 17–19, 2010. The authors wish to acknowledge the cooperation and efforts of the cancer registries and public health departments from the states of Arizona, California (Regions 2–6), Colorado, Delaware, Illinois, Iowa, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Nebraska, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Washington, and Wyoming. The authors also thank the staff of the hundreds of hospitals that reported cases to the participating cancer registries. Lastly, the authors are grateful to the thousands of cancer survivors, their physicians, and their loved ones who contributed to the collection of these data.