The Relationship between Communication and Psychological Distress for Cancer Survivors and their Family Members: Application of the Actor-Partner Interdependence Model

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to investigate the relationships between communication and psychological distress among cancer survivors and their family members. More specifically, the current study focuses on communication between family members and physicians, a major factor affecting cancer survivorship care, especially on communication within the family and the ability to communicate with physicians. The subjects are cancer survivors diagnosed with breast or colorectal cancer and one member from each of their families, and they were sampled from Seoul and Gyeonggi-do, Korea, using convenience sampling. A total of 63 cancer survivor-family dyads were sampled for analysis. As a dyadic research project focusing on the interaction between cancer survivors and family members, the current study estimated the actor-and-partner effects using the pooled regression Actor-Partner Interdependence Model (APIM), which is suitable for analyzing small-scale data sets. The findings indicated that better communication with physicians for cancer survivors was associated with lower depressive levels. For family members, better family communication was associated with lower depressive levels. The survivor-partner effect was not observed. For the family-partner effects, however, the relationship between family communication and psychological distress proved significant. That is, better family communication for cancer survivors was associated with higher anxiety and lower depressive levels for family members. The current study provided clinical and policy recommendations regarding a comprehensive approach to cancer care, psycho-social interventions for cancer survivorship care, a precise understanding of factors influencing distress, and positive communication between patients and physicians based on patient-centered care.