Coping With 'Scanxiety': Within-Person Processes in Lung Cancer

Background: Patients with early-stage lung cancer undergo potentially curative therapy, and continue to undergo regularly scheduled CT scans to determine if cancer has reappeared, spread, or stayed the same. This process can be fraught with anxiety, coined 'Scanxiety'. The present study examined how coping and scan-related anxiety fluctuate within-person before one's scan. Method: Twenty five individuals with lung cancer who had received curative intent treatment (M age = 62.33, [SD = 8.10], 96% women, 80% white) participated in the study, which had two parts. First, participants provided information about proactive coping and scan-related anxiety every 30 days. Next, a daily diary study was implemented for 7 consecutive days before their CT scan, as well as the day of their CT scan, where participants reported on their daily anticipatory coping and scan-related anxiety. The 25 participants provided 59 monthly and 146 daily surveys for analysis. Results: Multilevel models revealed significant main effects of monthly proactive coping on monthly scan-related anxiety, as well as daily anticipatory coping on daily scan-related anxiety. On months when participants decreased their use of proactive coping, they also reported decreases in scan-related anxiety for that month. On days when participants reported decreases in outcome fantasy and stagnant deliberation, they reported decreases in scan-related anxiety for that day. Finally, a significant interaction was found such that on days when middle-aged adults reported increases in problem analysis, they also reported increases in scan-related anxiety for that day. Conclusion: These findings are the first to characterize how participants' coping and scanxiety fluctuate in the months and days prior to their CT scans. Results indicated that focusing on the present may be more beneficial in reducing scan-related anxiety rather than thinking about the future. Future work should implement strategies to reduce scanxiety by focusing on the present among those with lung cancer.