CINTESIS is collaborating with a study that aims to understand what adolescents and young adults diagnosed with a cancer disease when they were 15 to 25 years old think and feel. In 2020, 328 new cases of cancer disease were diagnosed in young people aged 15 to 24, residents in Portugal, according to data from the Global Cancer Observatory – GLOBOCAN.
“Adolescents and young adults experience several challenges typical of their developmental stage. The diagnosis of a cancer disease at these ages brings additional challenges related to side effects of treatments and specific concerns,” explains the project team, which is co-supervised by CINTESIS/University of Aveiro researcher Sara Monteiro.
It is known that this diagnosis also “impacts the mental health of these young people, with research reporting that they feel anxious, depressed, and experience low quality of life and fear that the cancer disease will return.
Participants will be asked to complete a short online questionnaire by the end of February 2023. Its completion is essential for the research, and is voluntary, anonymous and confidential.
The first results are expected by the middle of this year. In particular, it is intended that health professionals and researchers will have an instrument to assess, in their clinical practice, the fear of cancer recurrence, allowing for a better understanding of the impact of the disease and effective guidance of young people.
This study is part of the Fearless Project under the scope of the Faculty of Psychology and Education Sciences of the University of Porto, with the collaboration of CINTESIS, the Psychology Center of the University of Porto, the Department of Education and Psychology of the University of Aveiro and Radboud University Medical Center (Netherlands).
The project is funded by the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT) and its partners are the Acreditar Association and the Rui Osório de Castro Foundation.
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