Open Access“Optimism Is a Strategy for Making a Better Future”
Author(s) -
Giulia Marton,
Dario Monzani,
Laura Vergani,
Silvia Francesca Maria Pizzoli,
Gabriella Pravettoni
Publication year - 2022
Publication title -
european psychologist
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.17
H-Index - 57
eISSN - 1878-531X
pISSN - 1016-9040
DOI - 10.1027/1016-9040/a000422
Subject(s) - optimism , clinical psychology , quality of life (healthcare) , personality , psychology , predictive power , disease , mental health , association (psychology) , cancer , medicine , psychiatry , psychotherapist , social psychology , philosophy , epistemology
. Cancer is a deadly disease that can lead to psychological suffering and decreased quality of life (QoL). Personality has been proven to have an effect on QoL and, in particular, Dispositional Optimism (DO) has been studied in relation to overcoming health crisis. The aim of this systematic review is to deepen the state of art of the relationship between QoL and DO in cancer patients. PubMed and Embase databases were systematically searched. Fifteen studies were included with a total of 5,249 cancer patients. All of the studies consider the relationship between DO and QoL, some studies analyze the correlation between the two variables and found a positive association. The majority of the studies investigate the predictive power of DO over QoL and most of them found DO to be predictive of a higher QoL. Results confirmed the association between DO and QoL in a sample of cancer patients. These results could influence the clinical practice as DO has been proven to have a beneficial effect on mental and physical health.