Relationship between resilience, social support as well as anxiety/depression of lung cancer patients

OBJECTIVE: The mood of patients with lung carcinoma would be greatly influenced by the diagnosing and treating processes. This study was aimed to explore the effects of resilience between social assistance and anxiety/depression of patients with lung cancer, which may assist in clinical intervention. DESIGN AND METHODS: A cross-sectional pilot study was conducted on lung cancer patients at Xiangya Hospital of Central South University, China. A total of 289 patients aged 25-81 years were included in this study. RESULTS: Correlational analyses revealed that anxiety/depression was negatively associated with psychological resilience and each dimension of social assistance, including subjective support, objective support along with the supports utilization (P < 0.01). Furthermore, psychological resilience was positively related to subjective support (P < 0.01), support utilization (P < 0.01) along with objective support (P < 0.05). Mediational analyses showed that, on the one hand, resilience could partially mediate the relation between anxiety and subjective support and totally mediate the relationship between support utilization and anxiety. On the other hand, resilience could totally mediate the relation between depression and subjective support and partially mediate the relation between support utilization and depression. However, resilience did not play an intermediary role between anxiety/depression and objective support. CONCLUSION: Lower psychological anxiety and depression would be experienced by lung cancer patients with higher resilience and social support. The level of anxiety and depression would be indirectly affected by social support through the mediation of resilience.