Psychological Status during COVID-19 Pandemic on the Patients with Cancer

Abstract

Background: Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) emerged in December 2019 in China and exhibited as a highly contagious viral infection which led to a high level of mortality and morbidity. It is followed by a great deal of complications, such as serious psychological disorders. There are a few studies evaluating the psychological status of COVID-19 on the patients with cancer in Iran.Method: This was a cross-sectional study carried out on 94 patients with cancer who referred to Haft-e-Tir hospital for radiotherapy and chemotherapy from 20 April to 15 may, 2020. The data collection tool was the impact of events scale-revised (IES-R).Results: The prevalence of anxiety disorders and obsessive compulsive disorder based on past psychiatric history in the patients was 11.7% and 2.1%, respectively. The results revealed that age was significantly related to avoidance dimension score (B = -0. 209, 95% CI: -0.084 to - 0.335). Regarding hyper arousal dimension score, the results were as follows: rural residency (B = 5.091, 95% CI: 0.610 to 9.573), past psychiatric history (PPH) (B = 8.312, 95% CI: 4.314 to 12.310), and radiotherapy (B = -2.976, 95% CI: -5.878 to -0.074) had a statistically significant relationship with the hyper arousal dimension score.Conclusion: The patients with cancer had a severe form of COVID-19. Individuals with cancer who had a previous psychiatric history are more vulnerable to post-traumatic stress disorder symptoms after trauma.

Keywords

• psychology
• covid-19
• pandemics
• cancer