Purpose: The purpose of this study was to evaluate how much of the variance in emotional status amongst Taiwanese cancer patients could be accounted for by opioid-taking self-efficacy.
Methods: This cross-sectional study included 109 cancer patients who had taken prescribed opioid analgesics for cancer related pain in the past week and completed the Opioid-Taking Self-Efficacy Scale-CA (OTSES-CA) and Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale.
Results: There was a significant and negative correlation between scores on anxiety and self-efficacy total scale (r = -0.29, p < 0.01), self-efficacy communication subscale (r = -0.37, p < 0.01), self-efficacy acquiring help subscale (r = -0.22, p < 0.05) and self-efficacy managing treatment related concerns subscale (r = -0.32, p < 0.01). However, the correlation between scores on depression and the self-efficacy total scale was not significant (r = -0.18, p > 0.05); only the self-efficacy communication subscale was significantly and negatively associated with depression (r = -0.27, p < 0.01). The opioid-taking self-efficacy total scale accounted for 8% of predicting the patients' anxiety. Opioid-taking self-efficacy subscales accounted for 20% (R2 = 0.20, p = 0.000) of the variance in predicting anxiety and 10% (R2 = 0.10, p = 0.02) of the variance in predicting depression.
Conclusions: This study highlights the potential importance of a patient's opioid-taking self-efficacy beliefs in their emotional status, which is relevant to cancer pain.
Keywords: Anxiety; Depression; Emotion; Pain; Self-efficacy.
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