Death anxiety as general factor to fear of cancer recurrence

Menée en Allemagne par enquête en ligne auprès de 121 patients atteints d'un cancer, cette étude analyse l'association entre l'anxiété liée à la mort et la peur de la récidive de la maladie

Résumé en anglais

Objective : Fear of cancer recurrence or progress is strongly related to death anxiety in cancer patients, but due to lack of conceptualization and measurement methods, the relationship was not analyzed quantitatively before. The aim of the present study was to investigate the conceptual relationship of both constructs, with death anxiety expected to be the general construct.

Methods : Cancer patients (N=121) participated in an online study. They provided information on socio-demographical, medical and psychological measures including death anxiety (DADDS-G) and fear of cancer recurrence or progression (FoP-Q-SF). Relation of constructs was assessed using a two-step process: Confirming individual construct structure with CFA, including correlation of constructs and modification of measurement model, followed by structural equation modeling and comparison of structure models for best model fit.

Results : The measurement model was modified to include three residual correlations within and between constructs. Comparison of structure models supported a bifactor structure with death anxiety as general factor and fear of recurrence or progression as group factor: SB