Relationship between loneliness and post-traumatic growth in patients with gynecologic malignancies: the mediating role of self-disclosure and psychological resilience

Abstract

Abstract Background To explore the relationship between loneliness and post-traumatic growth, with a focus on the mediating role of psychological resilience and self-disclosure. Methods This study was a cross-sectional survey using the Loneliness Scale for Cancer Patients, the Distress Expression Index Scale (for measuring self-disclosure), the Psychological Resilience Scale, and the Posttraumatic Growth Scale on 215 inpatients with gynecologic malignancies at a tertiary care hospital in Guangzhou. Subsequently, Correlation, regression, and mediation analyses were performed using SPSS to test the relationships between the variables. Results The results showed that loneliness was negatively correlated with posttraumatic growth (r = -0.261, P 0.05), but could influence posttraumatic growth through the mediated effect of self-disclosure and psychological resilience, where the total indirect effect of self-disclosure and psychological resilience was − 0.155 (95% CI: -0.236, -0.081, P < 0.001). Conclusions The mechanism of loneliness on post-traumatic growth in patients with gynecologic malignancies is mainly through the indirect effect of self-disclosure and the indirect impact of psychological resilience. Great attention should be paid to patients’ loneliness, to find factors promoting patients’ self-disclosure, to improve the level of patients’ psychological resilience, and promote post-traumatic growth of gynecologic malignant tumors.

Keywords

• Gynecologic malignancy
• Post-traumatic growth
• Loneliness
• Psychological resilience
• Self-disclosure
• Chain mediation