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Factors associated with benefit finding and mental health of patients with cancer: a systematic review

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Abstract

Purpose

This systematic review was performed to identify the association between benefit finding (BF) and anxiety, depression, and distress, as well as to find factors related to BF in adult cancer patients.

Methods

Five English databases and four Chinese databases were searched to identify eligible articles about BF in adult cancer patients from inception to 4 July 2021. Literature screening, data extraction, and quality assessment were carried out by two reviewers independently according to the inclusion and exclusion criteria. Qualitative synthesis was used to summarize the results.

Results

Twenty-one studies involving 9601 cancer patients were included in this study. Qualitative analysis showed that BF was negatively related to anxiety, depression, and distress. Factors associated with BF included sociodemographic factors, disease-related factors, and psychological and environmental factors.

Conclusions

Healthcare providers should pay attention to the summarized factors of BF and construct intervention programs based on the controllable factors to improve BF in adult cancer patients, thus promoting the recovery of patients.

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Data availability

The data that support the findings of this study are shown in Table 1.

Code availability

Not applicable.

Change history

  • 25 April 2022

    Updated due to the missing author contribution.

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Funding

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (82174129); the Postgraduate Research & Practice Innovation Program of Jiangsu Province (KYCX20_3006); the Jiangsu Key Laboratory of Zoonosis, China (HX2002); and the Qinglan Project of Yangzhou University, China (YDRS [2018] 44).

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Nursing, Yangzhou University, Hanjing County, 136 Jiangyang Middle Road, Yangzhou City, 225009, Jiangsu Province, China

    Pingting Zhu, Chen Chen, Xinyi Liu & Xingchen Shang

  2. Jiangsu Key Laboratory of Zoonosis, Hanjing County, 136 Jiangyang Middle Road, Yangzhou City, 225009, Jiangsu Province, China

    Pingting Zhu

  3. Department of Oncology, Guangling Country, Northern Jiangsu People’s Hospital, 98 Nantong West Road, Yangzhou City, 225001, Jiangsu Province, China

    Weina Gu

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  1. Pingting Zhu
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  2. Chen Chen
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  3. Xinyi Liu
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Contributions

ZPT contributed to the conception, study supervision, and critical revision of the manuscript. CC contributed to conception, literature research, literature sections, and interpretation, and drafted the manuscript. LXY contributed to literature research and literature sections. GWN contributed to interpretation. SXC contributed to the revision of the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Pingting Zhu.

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Pingting Zhu and Chen chen should be considered joint first authors.

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Zhu, P., Chen, C., Liu, X. et al. Factors associated with benefit finding and mental health of patients with cancer: a systematic review. Support Care Cancer 30, 6483–6496 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00520-022-07032-3

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