The Relationship between Stressors, War Trauma, Anxiety, and Depression in Patients with Cancer in Gaza Strip
Date
2015-01-07
Authors
Reema Awni Bseiso
ريما عوني بسيسو
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Al-Quds University
Abstract
The study aimed to investigate the relationship between stressors due to siege, war trauma,
anxiety and depression among cancer patients in Gaza strip. The study sample consisted of 380
cancer patients (128 male and 252 female). The researcher used descriptive –analytical design to
describe the study variables using; Gaza Scale for Socio-demographic status ; Gaza Stressful
Situations Checklist:; Beck Depression Inventory Short form 13 item, translated into Arabic by
Thabet; Hamilton Anxiety Scale .
The finding revealed that, the most common reported stressors due to siege were : 92.9% said
prices are sharply increased due to closure, 90.3% said they feel that they are in big prison ,
85.5% their work affected so much due to cut-off of electricity and shortage of gas (85.5%).
The most common traumatic experiences reported by patients were: hearing shelling of the area
by artillery (100%), hearing the loud voice of drones (99.9%), and watching mutilated bodies in
TV (97.6 %). The results showed that 9.3% males and 9.5% females have mild traumatic events;
44.5% male and 56.7% females have moderate traumatic events; 46.2% males and 33.8%
females have severe traumatic events.
The study showed that the most common depression symptoms were: discouraged about the
future (52.9%) and feel sadness (46.6%), while the least common depression symptom was
thoughts of killing self (13.7%).
The study showed that the commonly reported anxiety symptoms among cancer patients were;
being tense and restless (61.3%), had insomnia (56.3%), had cardiovascular symptoms (51.1%),
and worried (50%). The results showed that 10.8% of males had no anxiety, 8.2% had mild to
moderate, and 14.7% had moderate to severe anxiety.