Akhtar Igbal, Kiran Intekhab, Khawer Saeed.
Non-Medical factors associated with psychological disorders in cancer patients.
J Coll Physicians Surg Pak Jan ;12(5):271-3.

Objective: To find out major non-medical factors associated with psychological disorders in cancer patients. Design: An observational study conducted on adult cancer patients. Place and Duration of Study: The study was conducted at Shaukat Khanum Memorial Cancer Hospital and Research Center Lahore Pakistan from January 1999 - December 1999. Patients and Methods: Two hundred and twenty-four newly-diagnosed adult cancer patients were interviewed by the clinical psychologist and data was collected regarding non-medical causal factors, patients age, gender, family support system, general home atmosphere and marital status. Collected data was analyzed by utilizing SPSS for Windows version 10.0. Results: Of the 224 patients 142 (63.4%) reported non-medical factors causing psychological distress and 82 (36.6%) reported that medical sources are the most distressing. Ten most common non-medical sources of developing psychological disorders were identified. It was observed that family support system and general home atmosphere were significantly associated with the development of psychological disorders whereas the other variables such as age, gender and marital status had no significant relationship with the non-medical factors. Conclusion: It was concluded that non-medical factors causing psychological problems are significant in cancer patients. The results suggest that we should identify these factors and target psychosocial intervention for those patients most at risk.

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