Anxiety is common in cancer patient populations, and must often initially be recognized and managed by cancer care professionals. This article reviews the recent oncology and mental health literature on anxiety. The aim is to help those involved in cancer patient care who are not specialists in mental health to understand the nature of anxiety, and discriminate morbid from normal anxiety. We review recent research into the association of anxiety with events during diagnosis and management of cancer, highlighting the importance of the meaning of events to an individual as an important factor in making people anxious. Lastly we review management strategies which might be used by cancer care professionals, in particular the importance of an awareness of specific patterns of communication which may alleviate or maintain anxiety for some cancer patients.
Copyright 2000 Cancer Research Campaign.