Alcohol consumption in cancer survivors: state of the question and proposals for the development of psychological interventions

Abstract

Objective: Alcohol consumption has been established as a risk factor for cancer development consistently over the years. In cancer survivors alcohol consumption after treatment achieves significant values, and furthermore alcohol has been associated with relevant aspects of survival, such as a high depression and a lower quality of life. There is no a great variety of interventions, however, whose objective be reduce alcohol consumption in this group of patients. Method: A review of the alcohol consumption in cancer patients and survivors and the available psychological interventions to reduce consumption in the last 10 years were carried out, from 2007 to 2017. The consulted databases were PubMed, Web of Science (WOS) and PsycInfo. The following descriptors were used: alcohol, cancer patients, survivors, psychological treatment. Results: Psychological interventions specifically designed to reduce alcohol consumption in cancer survivors are not observed in previous literature. Most of them focused in enhance health behaviors using psychosocial interventions or information about alcohol. Only one intervention showed significant results to reduce alcohol consumption in an intervention designed to reduce weight in breast cancer survivors. Conclusions: the relevance of alcohol consumption in this patients group suggest the need of develop a greater variability of psychological interventions that aim to control alcohol consumption in patients who have overcome the disease.