Psychiatric concomitants of cancer, screening procedures, and training of health care professionals in oncology: the paradigms of psycho-oncology in the psychiatry field

Psycho-oncology, as a subspecialty deals with the psychosocial, behavioral, spiritual, and existential dimensions of patients with cancer and their families. Over the past quarter century, psychooncology has contributed integrative principles in cancer care (Holland, 2002). As it has been recently shown for the subspecialty of psychosomatic medicine (Gitlin et al, 2004), psycho-oncology has also been recognized as a subspecialty of oncology for the impact it has had at clinical, educational and research levels. Several studies have shown that psychological factors such as stress, personality traits and grief do not increase the risk for cancer (Oksbjerg et al, 2002; Schapiro et al, 2002; Ross et al, 2003; Dalton et al, 2004). This important observation has changed the aspects of the clinical psychosocial research and most recent advances in psycho-oncology have been in clinical areas, such as psychosocial aspects of cancer prevention and screening, assessment of psychiatric and psychological disorders following diagnosis and treatment, family implications of cancer, cancer survivorship, and palliative care (Holland, 2003). In this article we will consider four key areas drawing much current attention: 1) the evaluation of psychiatric morbidity and its consequences in cancer patients; 2) the development and application of psychological screening guidelines; 3) the role of education and training among cancer physicians; and 4) the impact of evidence-based psychosocial treatment in cancer care. Psychiatric concomitants of cancer, screening procedures, and training of health care professionals in oncology: the paradigms of psycho-oncology in the psychiatry field