Role of sex on psychological distress,quality of life,and coping of patients with advanced colorectal and non-colorectal cancer

BACKGROUNDPatients with advanced gastrointestinal cancer must cope with the negative effects of cancer and complications.AIM To evaluate psychological distress,quality of life,and coping strategies in patients with advanced colorectal cancer compared to non-colorectal cancer based on sex.METHODS A prospective,transversal,multicenter study was conducted in 203 patients;101(50%)had a colorectal and 102(50%)had digestive,non-colorectal advanced cancer.Participants completed questionnaires evaluating psychological distress(Brief Symptom Inventory-18),quality of life(EORTC QLQ-C30),and coping strategies(Mini-Mental Adjustment to Cancer)before starting systemic cancer treatment.RESULTS The study included 42.4%women.Women exhibited more depressive symptoms,anxiety,functional limitations,and anxious preoccupation than men.Patients with non-colorectal digestive cancer and women showed more somatization and physical symptoms than subjects with colorectal cancer and men.Men with colorectal cancer reported the best health status.CONCLUSION The degree of disease acceptance in gastrointestinal malignancies may depend on sex and location of the primary digestive neoplasm.Future interventions should specifically address sex and tumor site differences in individuals with advanced digestive cancer.

Risk factors for antenatal depression: A review

Depression is the most prevalent mental disorder in pregnancy, and yet it is lessstudied than postpartum depression despite the consequences it may have onboth the pregnant woman and her offspring. Therefore, it would be important toknow which risk factors may favour the appearance of antenatal depression inorder to carry out appropriate prevention interventions. The aim of the presentreview was to identify the main risk factors of antenatal depression. We searchedin databases PubMed and PsycINFO for articles published about the factorsassociated with antenatal depression from January 2010 through December 2020.The literature review identified three main groups of antenatal depression riskfactors: sociodemographic, obstetric, and psychological. First, among thesociodemographic variables, the low level of studies and the economic incomeclearly stood out from the rest. Then, not having planned the pregnancy was themain obstetric variable, and finally, the main psychological risk factors werehaving a history of psychological disorders and/or depression as well aspresenting anxiety, stress, and/or low social support during pregnancy. Thisreview shows that the antenatal depression is affected by multiple factors. Mostcan be identified at the beginning of the pregnancy, and some are risk factorspotentially modifiable through appropriate interventions, such as psychologicalfactors. For this reason, it is important to carry out a good screening for depressionduring pregnancy and consequently, be able to prevent its appearance ortreat it if necessary.

Ecological Momentary Assessment with smartphones for measuring mental health problems in adolescents

AIM To analyze the viability of Ecological Momentary Assessment(EMA) for measuring the mental states associated with psychopathological problems in adolescents.METHODS In a sample of 110 adolescents,a sociodemographic data survey and an EMA Smartphone application over a oneweek period(five times each day),was developed to explore symptom profiles,everyday problems,coping strategies,and the contexts in which the events take place.RESULTS The positive response was 68.6%.Over 2250 prompts about mental states were recorded.In 53% of situations the smartphone was answered at home,25.5% of casesthey were with their parents or with peers(20.3%).Associations were found with attention,affective and anxiety problems(P < 0.001) in the participants who took longer to respond to the EMA app.Anxious and depressive states were highly interrelated(rho = 0.51,P < 0.001),as well as oppositional defiant problems and conduct problems(rho = 0.56,P < 0.001).Only in 6.2% of the situations the subjects perceived they had problems,mainly associated with inter-relational aspects with family,peers,boyfriends or girlfriends(31.2%).We also found moderate-high reliability on scales of satisfaction level on the context,on positive emotionality,and on the discomfort index associated with mental health problems.CONCLUSION EMA methodology using smartphones is a useful tool for understanding adolescents' daily dynamics.It achieved moderate-high reliability and accurately identified psychopathological manifestations experienced by community adolescents in their natural context.