A very interesting study appears in the April issue of the Annals of Behavioral Medicine.
The study concluded that when a married couple deals with cancer, either partner’s psychological distress might have a significant negative impact on the other. It did nor matter which of the partner had the cancer diagnosis.
“Whether it is my own or my partner’s, psychological distress it may impact my quality of life,” said lead researcher Youngmee Kim, director of Family Studies at the American Cancer Society’s Behavioral Research Center in Atlanta.
When the distress affects the female spouse, the impact is often greater on the male. Kim said “The psychological distress of the female partner seemed to have the greatest effect — whether the woman was the breast cancer survivor or the caregiver of a man with prostate cancer. If the female has higher level of psychological distress, the male partner will have higher level of psychosomatic problems.”
The study only looked at male-female pairs. One member of each couple had received a breast or prostate cancer diagnosis about two years before participating in the survey.
Surprisingly, husbands with wives under high stress rarely reported psychological or emotional problems themselves.
“Men tend not to say that psychological stress associated with cancer diagnosis and treatment is a problem, but they tend to somatize those stresses, reporting headaches and backaches. Maybe men are not conditioned or socialized to express those touchy feelings. They tend to show those feelings — let them come out — through their body,” Kim said.
The female spouses of men under stress did not report a similar somaization of their feelings.
Since stress on either spouse, especially the female, will have a significant affect on both members of the couple, we need to treat both the patient and their spouse. Helping the other spouse, especially the female, may improve the over all health of both.
A cancer diagnosis of one person is a cancer diagnosis of the entire couple. We need to remember this and provide support for both the patient and their spouse.
Joel T Nowak MA, MSW
My husband has advance prostate cance he had surg in 2005 removal of prostate. January of 2006 PSA went up
Dec off 2005 psa at 10 started Luptron shots it went down to 2 may and June 2007 had radion to the pelvic area 43 in Lymnoe Dec 2007 PSA was 6 Febury of 2008
20.6 started casodex and lupron Shot 35 day late PSA at 22.9 My question is if PSA doubles or tripples what does this mean? I already know it is bad but how fast does it spread time frame oh my husband is a paroplege also for 22 years T9 so he does not feel like normal people I think the wife should Know what is the worse that is about to happen it help prepair her and her children It gives you time to deal with a lot of feelings
it is now august and PSA is 143 w/ chemo