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Scientists have found that very neurotic men – between a quarter and a fifth of men in developed countries – were far more likely to suffer from adverse events such as erectile dysfunction and incontinence, likely to compromise their healing after an operation of prostate cancer. Researchers say this means that cancer teams may need to consider testing personality types to make sure patients treated for prostate cancer receive the best care. This work is presented at the congress of the European Association of Urology in Barcelona.
The researchers interviewed 982 men with prostate surgery (radical prostatectomy) at the University Hospital of Oslo in Norway. 761 of the respondents indicated that they had recovered from the surgery while self-reporting their neuroticism with the help of a standard questionnaire.
22% of men have a high score for neuroticism, which corresponds to the prevalence of neurotic personality high in national surveys in Norway (22%) and in other countries such as the Netherlands (25% ). When asked about their convalescence after radical prostatectomy, these men had significantly worse scores (* See below for the notes on the questionnaires).
Dr. Karol Axcrona (Principal Investigator at Akershus University Hospital in Norway) said:
"About a fifth of men have a high score for neuroticism, which is about all expectations.These men had a lot more side effects after a prostate cancer operation.We use a questionnaire standard for measuring the quality of life of men after prostate cancer, and on average very neurotic patients have experienced a deterioration of about 20% compared to non-neurotic patients for a variety of side effects, including erectile dysfunction , urinary leakage and intestinal problems, illness in general, but we still need to see this work reproduced in other studies ".
Until now, it was thought that the differences in surgical outcomes for prostate cancer were largely due to differences in surgical technique and the circumstances of prostate cancer. This work shows that personality can also be a contributing factor to surgical outcomes.
Dr. Axcrona continued:
"Neuroticism is not a disease, but a basic personality trait, like extraversion or openness, we all have some degree of neuroticism.What we discovered is that patients who show a greater tendency to neuroticism have worse results 3 years after prostate cancer surgery.This effect is real and physicians must take this into account, in the same way that we would take into account the physical factors before and This means that we may need more advanced personality testing for identification and counseling, and perhaps more specialized follow-up of men who may have poorer results. think the increased risk of adverse effects is likely to hinder the patient's overall recovery, although the study was not designed to measure it "
Professor Arnulf Stenzl (Tuebingen, Germany), director of the scientific bureau of the European Association of Urology, said:
"It's interesting and new work, it would be very useful for those affected, but it might be difficult to test all patients, so in practice we may need to pre-screen those who are most at risk. We know roughly that one in five will tend to be neurotic, but we need to be more confident about how this translates into postoperative clinical or psychological effects, so we need more data. "
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Type of study: non-peer reviewed / observational / on human subjects
This is an independent comment; Professor Stenzl was not involved in this work.
* Postoperative adverse events were measured using the EPIC-26 https: /
For funding, see Notes to Editors.
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