A study of seeking guidance and support coping strategy of cancer patients

This study on seeking guidance and support coping strategy was conducted with 120 cancer patients of Lok Nayak Jay Prakash Hospital, New Delhi. The study was based on 2×2×2 factorial design experiment with two conditions of mode of treatment (chemotherapy and surgery), two types of extroversion (extrovert and introvert), and two types of neuroticism (emotionally stable and emotionally unstable). Thus, there were eight groups of subjects with 15 subjects in each group. Coping Response Inventory and Eysenck Personality Inventory was used to collect data from all subjects. The statistical analysis of data revealed that seeking guidance and support coping of extrovert cancer patients was significantly more than that of introvert cancer patients; and seeking guidance and support coping of emotionally stable cancer patients was significantly more than that of emotionally unstable cancer patients. The interaction between the mode of treatment and extroversion, and another interaction between extroversion and neuroticism was also significant.    Key words: Personality, coping, guidance and support, extroversion, neuroticism, cancer patients.