Aims: Recent research suggests an important role for personal meaning in the context of adaptation to cancer. However, specific meaning-focused coping processes have been little investigated so far. This longitudinal study examines the occurrence of (a) reattribution and (b) search for personal meaning as subtypes of (a) situational vs. (b) global meaning-focused coping processes according to the Park & Folkman model1.
Methods: A total of 275 patients were recruited during inpatient (lung cancer: 40%) or outpatient (breast/ovarian cancer: 60%) treatment (T1, participation rate: 50%) and after six months (T2, n=169). The mean age was 59.0 (SD=11.1), 70% were female, and 57% were in palliative treatment. Search for personal meaning was assessed by the Meaning in Life Questionnaire-Search (MLQ-S). Reattribution was assessed by a two-item-index tapping causal and selective incidence reattribution processes.
Results: 32% reported “often” or “always” for at least one reattribution item at T1. 22% reported “mostly” or “absolutely true” for at least one MLQ-S-item. While the mean reattribution score decreased between T1 (M=5.0, SD=2.0) and T2 (M=4.6, SD=2.2) (p<0.01), search for personal meaning scores did not change (M=16.4, SD=8.3) vs. (M=16.5, SD=8.0). However, reattribution at T2 was significantly predicted by older age and palliative treatment at T1 (p<0.05), when gender, tumor site, time since diagnosis and baseline level of reattribution were controlled. Search for personal meaning at T2 was not related to any of these factors at T1.
Conclusions: Results show that both types of meaning-focused coping processes were present in our sample, independent of tumor site and time since diagnosis. Limited associations with sociodemographic and medical factors suggest the need to focus on the individual cancer-global meaning system interaction in order to better understand the occurrence of global meaning-focused coping.