Family functioning and psychological distress in oncology

Abstract

The cancer experience is a process that affects the family, which is the primary support system and is disturbed to its normal performance, resulting psychological distress associated with cancer development. The screening process of emotional distress in relatives of cancer patients, involves the use of assessment strategies both quantitative and qualitative for determining whether the family support system has the knowledge, skills and attitudes necessary to provide care and maintain both patient herself. The study of relationship between family functioning and psychological adjustment was aimed to analyze how the functioning and family support would influence to its adaptation to the disease; for this goal, we analyzed the family type, its structure and psychological adjustment. The procedure is based on the application of a Questionnaire of social and demographic information, and test: Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale, Family Relationship Index, Self-report Family Inventory and the APGAR-F. Study results let identified higher levels of emotional involvement in relatives group. As for family screening tests, there is considerable similarity in the results, to be seen in the three test that is a small percentage, the group of families that with characteristics of dysfunctional systems. Functional families had lower emotional involvement.