Abstract
Background Tailor-made strategies for assessing and improving cancer morbidity, malnutrition, a complex multifactorial syndrome, need to identify patients’ characteristics or individuality.
Method Postoperative cancer patients (n=103), gastric, colorectal or breast, TNM stage I-III, and doctors/nurses (n=102) completed the EPQ-25, which measures individual characteristics on personality scores of extraversion (E), neuroticism (N), psychoticism (P) and conformity (L). Malnutrition parameters were obtained by the QOL-20 items and blood sample analysis. Explanation about disease severity from doctors, patient-family relationship, surgical procedure (total or partial gastrectomy), nutritional support (normal oral intake, hyperalimentation, fluid therapy) and radiation therapy of patients were recorded.
Results Patients’ personality of less E, P and L and greater N predicted (P<0.05-0.001) higher anorexia, asthenia, pain, stress (impeding factors of food intake) or sodium, and lower quality of life (QOL), total protein, triglyceride, total-cholesterol, potassium or lymphocyte level [suggesting a risk of malnutrition], after controlling for tumor site, stage, age, sex, blood type and birth season.
Doctors’/nurses’ personality interacting with patients’ personality, not either personality alone, significantly predicted QOL, nutritional, anemic and immune status, prognosis of patients after surgery, with doctors’ explanation about disease, family relationship, total gastrectomy and oral nutrient intake as differential factors.
Intercorrelations (convergent validity) as a function of personality suggested: malnourished patients have a poor QOL, protein-energy undernutrition, muscle tissue depletion and bodily fluid imbalabces; their stress-related immune function, and anemia responsible for reduced energy metabolism, are influenced by personality.
Conclusion Cancer patients’ personality score was an easy, rapid, non-invasive and cost-effective diagnostic tool for identifying which patient is at risk of developing malnutrition. Doctors’/nurses’ personality, congenial to patients’ personality, may alleviate this risk, with explanation about disease, family relationship, partial gastrectomy and oral nutrition.
