Coping and Psychological Distress among Cancer Patients: The Ghanaian Perspective

The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between coping and psychological distress. It also aimed at determining whether Afrocentric worldview would moderate the relationship between coping and psychological distress. The study was cross sectional using mixed method approach, and 50 cancer patients were conveniently and purposively sampled for the study. The quantitative data was collected through questionnaire such as Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS), Afrocentric Coping System Inventory and Africentric Worldview Scale. The semi-structured interview guide was used to collect qualitative data from the respondents. The results showed that the mean weighting of patients’ anxiety and depression was 4.08 and 5.42 respectively. Coping correlated with psychological distress [r = -0.297, p= 0.018], and no significant relationship was found between Africentric worldview and psychological distress [r = -0.138, p= 0.17]. Africentric worldview did not moderate the relationship between coping and psychological distress [β= 2.25, t=1.46, p=0.088]. The content analysis approach was used to analyze the qualitative data and five themes were generated: knowledge of cancer, psychological effect, physiological effect, social support and means of coping. Additional findings, implications for clinical practice and further studies are discussed. The study highlighted the common mental health problems among cancer patients in Ghana and has provided the basis for incorporating psychological care into treatment. Therefore, it is recommended that the treatment of cancer should adopt the biopsychosocial approach in order to provide comprehensive care to the patients.

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The authors declare no conflict of interest.

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The datasets used in this study are openly available at [repository link] and the source code is available on GitHub at [GitHub link].

This work did not receive any external funding.