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Abstract
Objective: The purpose of the study is to describe from a relational perspective, partners’ psychological adjustment, coping and support needs for advanced prostate cancer.
Design: A mixed methods design was adopted, employing triangulation of qualitative and quantitative data, to produce dyadic profiles of adjustment for six couples recruited from the urology clinics of local hospitals in Tasmania, Australia.
Methods: Dyads completed a video-taped communication task, semi-structured interview and standardised self-report questionnaires.
Results: Themes identified were associated with the dyadic challenges of the disease experience (e.g. relationship intimacy, disease progression and carer burden). Couples with poor psychological adjustment profiles had both clinical and global locus of distress, treatment side-effects, carer burden and poor general health. Resilient couples demonstrated relationship closeness and adaptive cognitive and behavioural coping strategies. The themes informed the adaption of an effective program for couples coping with women’s cancers (CanCOPE, to create a program for couples facing advanced prostate cancer (ProCOPE-Adv).
Conclusion: Mixed method results inform the development of psychological therapy components for couples coping with advanced prostate cancer. The concomitance of co-morbid health problems may have implications for access and engagement for older adult populations in face-to-face intervention.
Acknowledgements
K.J. Elliott (nee Murray) was supported by the Treatment and Care of Cancer Award from The Jim Bacon Foundation in 2007 to conduct this study. This project was also supported in part by the Clifford Craig Medical Research Trust (Grant awarded to J.L. Scott et al.). This study formed part of KJE’s Masters in Psychology (Clinical) degree with guidance and supervision by JLS and A/Prof. Raimondo Bruno. We thank the referring urologists Mr Mike Monsour, Mr Fadi Nuwayhid, Mr Frank Redwig, Mr Stephen Brough and Mr Anthony Eaton. We also thank the Prostate Cancer Support Group at the Cancer Council of Tasmania. We gratefully acknowledge the participants for their time and valuable contributions.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.