Patient’s Perceived Autonomy Support Affecting their Levels of Depression and Treatment Motivation

Utilizing the concept of autonomy-supportive from Self-Determination Theory (Deci & Ryan, 2000), the present study examined the levels of depression and treatment motivation among 193 cancer patients within repeated measure research design. The Treatment Motivation Questionnaire (Ryan, Plant, & O'Malley, 1995) and Beck Depression Inventory (Beck, Ward, Mendelson, Mock & Erbaugh, 1961) were administered to the patients at the time of admission in hospitals. During their treatment, patients were then requested to fill Health Care Climate Questionnaire (Williams, Grow, Freedman, Ryan, & Deci, 1996). One month later patient’s scores on depression and treatment motivation were again tested and were compared with the pervious scores on both scales. Results indicated that (a) prior the treatment, patients were more depressed and less motivated for their treatment (b) the patients perceiving higher autonomy support were more motivated towards their treatment and were less depressed than patients perceiving their doctors with low autonomy-supportive. Results pertaining to gender differences demonstrated that both male and female patients who perceive their physicians more supportive reported less depression and greater treatment motivation than those who don’t perceive their therapist as supportive for them. Findings further contributed that female patients perceiving autonomy support reported higher levels of depression and low levels of treatment motivation than male patients perceiving autonomy supportive.