Anxiety in the management of localised prostate cancer by active surveillance

To describe a range of anxieties in men on active surveillance (AS) for prostate cancer and determine which of these anxieties predicted health-related quality of life (HRQL).

In all, 260 men with prostate cancer on AS were invited to complete psychological measures including the Hospital and Anxiety Depression Scale; the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory-Trait Scale; the Memorial Anxiety Scale for Prostate Cancer; and the Functional Assessment of Cancer Therapy Scale-Prostate. Overall, 86 men with a mean (sd, range) age of 65.7 (5.4, 51-75) years returned data, yielding a response rate of 33%. Outcome measures were standardised psychological measures. Pearson's correlations were used to examine bivariate relationships, while regression analyses were used to describe predictors of dependent variables.

When compared with the findings of prior research, the men in our cohort had normal levels of general anxiety and illness-specific anxiety and high prostate cancer-related HRQL. Age, trait anxiety and fear of recurrence (FoR) were significant predictors of prostate cancer-related HRQL; trait anxiety and FoR were significant predictors of total HRQL. Results should be interpreted in context of sample characteristics and the correlational design of the study.

Participants reported low levels of anxiety and high HRQL. Trait anxiety and FoR were significant predictors of both prostate cancer-related and total HRQL. The administration of a short trait-anxiety screening tool may help identify men with clinically significant levels of anxiety and those at risk of reduced HRQL.