Cancer coping self-efficacy, symptoms and their relationship with quality of life among cancer survivors

Abstract

Purpose: Cancer coping self-efficacy refers to an individual's confidence in dealing with challenges from cancer-related events, and a positive association with quality of life (QoL) has been demonstrated. Considering unre-solved physical and psychological symptoms at the survivorship phase, which are known to worsen QoL, the association between cancer coping self-efficacy and QoL needs to be evaluated controlling for known contrib-uting factors of QoL. This study aimed to describe cancer survivors' cancer coping self-efficacy, symptoms and their relationship with QoL.Methods: A descriptive correlational study was conducted. Participants were cancer survivors who completed intended treatment except for hormone therapy (N = 240). Cancer coping self-efficacy, symptoms, and QoL were measured. To evaluate the association of cancer survivors' cancer coping self-efficacy with QoL, correlation and multiple regression analysis were conducted. Results: Cancer coping self-efficacy demonstrated a significant positive association with QoL. Symptoms had a significant negative association with QoL. Fully active cancer survivors demonstrated significantly better QoL than those with functional deterioration. Self-efficacy for using spiritual coping had a significant positive asso-ciation with QoL, along with symptoms and functional status, which explained 37.5% of QoL.Conclusions: Cancer survivors' QoL was related to spiritual coping self-efficacy, symptoms and functional status. Improving spiritual coping self-efficacy and managing symptoms reflecting survivors' functional status need to be integrated into survivorship care.