Impact of Personality Traits, Anxiety, Depression and Hopelessness Levels on Quality of Life in the Patients with Breast Cancer

Abstract

Objective: The aim of this study was to investigate the impacts of personality traits, anxiety, depression and hopelessness levels on quality of lifein the patients with breast cancer.Materials and methods: The study was performed on 90 patients diagnosed with breast cancer and 90 healthy women. Sociodemographic andClinical Data Collection Form designed by us, Beck Hopelessness Scale (BHS), Beck Anxiety Scale (BAS), Beck Depression Scale (BDS), EysenckPersonality Inventory (EPI) and Quality of Life Scale–Short Form (SF-36) were administered to patients and to control group.Results: The patients with breast cancer were found to indicate higher levels of anxiety and depression, lower levels of quality of life, and higherscores of personality inventory subscales as compared to the healthy control group. In the patient group, it was identified that the quality of lifesubscale scores were found to be negatively correlated with anxiety, depression, hopelessness and neurotic personality scores; there was a positivecorrelation between neurotic personality scores and depression, anxiety and hopelessness scores.Conclusions: It can be concluded that the breast cancer patients with extraversion personality traits have lower levels of anxiety and depression,keeping their quality of life better, whereas the patients with higher neuroticism scores may have more impaired quality of life. Therefore, the psychiatricevaluation of the breast cancer patients during and after the treatment cannot be ruled out.