Cancer patients don’t stress much over claustrophobia, noise or other discomforts they know they’ll face in scheduled whole-body MRI exams.
In fact, most would choose that modality over CT with its radiation doses and tend to consider imaging-exam outcomes more worrisome than MRI in and of itself anyway.
These are the primary conclusions of researchers at the University of Milan in Italy who recruited 70 cancer patients for surveying on anxiety before and after undergoing whole-body MRI to track and stage cancers or to monitor therapies.
Publishing their findings in Cancer Reports Dec. 9, lead author Ketti Mazzocco, senior author Gabriella Pravettoni and colleagues report a positive correlation between pre- and post-scan scores on the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI) measure. There was no significant difference between the two [1].
“We attribute the lack of significant difference to the fact that the patients had not yet received the examination report, and therefore the context was not resolved, when compiling the post-examination STAI [scores],” the authors comment in their discussion.
“As regards factors influencing the levels of pre- and post-whole-body MRI examination anxiety, we found a negative association between dispositional optimism and pre- and post-anxiety,” the authors write. “This suggests that patients with higher levels of anxiety were less likely to expect good outcomes.”
Mazzocco and colleagues further note that pre-scan STAI scores had a negative correlation with emotional stability and a positive correlation with emotional representation.
Post-scan STAI scores had a negative correlation with optimistic orientation.
“The mental representation of the disease in its emotional and cognitive (sense-making) component has a crucial weight on anxiety,” as does “personality disposition such as optimism,” the authors write.
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Interventions aimed at improving illness perceptions and reducing perceived stress may also be effective in improving the psychological health and quality of life of patients.”
The study is posted in full for free.
Dave P. has worked in journalism, marketing and public relations for more than 30 years, frequently concentrating on hospitals, healthcare technology and Catholic communications. He has also specialized in fundraising communications, ghostwriting for CEOs of local, national and global charities, nonprofits and foundations.