Assessment of obsessive thoughts and worries in women with breast cancer

Background: Obsessive thoughts represent a part of the cognitive process for stressful experiences. They are undesirable and recurring, and, generally, they can manifest as obsessions or worries. They are common both when patients receive a cancer diagnosis, throughout and at the end of treament. We observed that patients with different degrees of seriousness of breast cancer show obsessive thoughts even after treatment. This observational and perspective study examines whether obsessive thoughts and worries can be present in the diagnosis phase, during treatment and at the end of neoplastic illness, in women with breast carcinoma. Secondary aims evaluate: the clinical, socio-demographic and treatment factors associated with presence of intrusive thoughts; the response to uncertain situations and the presence of post-traumatic symptoms and their association with anxiety, depression and worry; the association between intrusive thoughts and worry, anxiety and depression. Material (patients) and methods: we collect demographical and clinical data and administer questionnaires to 135 female patients who access the Breast Unit - General Surgery for the therapeutic approach of the disease, who are between the ages of 18 and 75 years and received a first diagnosis of breast carcinoma. Participants excluded from the study are women: unable to understand the italian language; with other neoplastic disease; undergoing treatment; in pharmacological treatment; with head injury, degenerative or cardiac disease; who had been previously diagnosed with cancer and had undergone treatment. Participants complete the following questionnaires, after signing the Informed Consent: • Obsessive Compulsive Inventory-Revised (OCI-R), to examine peculiar symptoms of obsessive-compulsive disorder; • Penn State Worry Questionnaire (PSWQ) and Worry Domains Questionnaire (WDQ), to reveal the content and the process of worries; • Beck Anxiety Inventory (BAI), to evaluate anxiety symptoms; • Beck Depression Inventory-II (BDI-II), to evaluate depressive symptoms; • Impact of event scale - revised (IES-R), employed to examine the presence of post-traumatic syndrome; • Intolerance of Uncertainty Scale-12 (IUS-12), to evaluate the response to uncertain situations about the future. Results: the study is still in progress. Conclusions: the aim of the study is to verify the onset and change of obsessive thoughts and worries evaluated at post-diagnosis, during the treatment and at follow-up in women with breast carcinoma.