Accepting the unacceptable? Exploring how acceptance relates to quality of life and death anxiety in a cancer population

Brabbins, Lucinda, Moghaddam, Nima and Dawson, Dave (2020) Accepting the unacceptable? Exploring how acceptance relates to quality of life and death anxiety in a cancer population. Emerald Open Research, 2 . p. 13. ISSN 2631-3952

Full content URL: https://doi.org/10.35241/emeraldopenres.13524.1

Others
Accepting the unacceptable? Exploring how acceptance relates to quality of life and death anxiety in a cancer population
Saved HTML of publisher website
[img]
[Download]
[img] HTML
2-13 - Whole Document
Available under License Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International.

283kB
Item Type:Article
Item Status:Live Archive

Abstract

Background: Quality of life is a core concern for cancer patients, which can be negatively affected by illness-related death anxiety; yet understanding of how to appropriately target psycho-oncological interventions remains lacking. We aimed to explore experiential acceptance in cancer patients, and whether acceptance – as an alternative to avoidant coping – was related to and predictive of better quality of life and death anxiety outcomes.
Methods: We used a longitudinal, quantitative design with a follow-up after three months. Seventy-two participants completed a questionnaire-battery measuring illness appraisals, acceptance and non-acceptance coping-styles, quality of life, and death anxiety; 31 participants repeated the battery after three months.
Results: Acceptance was an independent explanatory and predictive variable for quality of life and death anxiety, in the direction of psychological health. Acceptance had greater explanatory power for outcomes than either cancer appraisals or avoidant response styles. Avoidant response styles were associated with greater death anxiety and poorer quality of life.
Conclusions: The findings support the role of an accepting response-style in favourable psychological outcomes, identifying a possible target for future psychological intervention. Response styles that might be encouraged in other therapies, such as active coping, planning, and positive reframing, were not associated with beneficial outcomes.

Keywords:Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, acceptance, death, death anxiety, terror management, cancer, quality of life
Subjects:C Biological Sciences > C840 Clinical Psychology
Divisions:College of Social Science > School of Psychology
ID Code:41007
Deposited On:05 Jun 2020 11:44

Repository Staff Only: item control page