The population of the Western world is aging while cancer survival rates are rising. Older patients with cancer will increasingly be taken care of by informal family caregivers. The current study describes levels of psychological distress, social support and coping abilities reported by partners who are caregivers to older patients with cancer (60+ years), comparing them to a control group of spouses of similarly aged people not suffering from life-threatening illness. Two hundred sixteen partners who are primary caregivers of cancer patients aged 60+ were compared with 76 partners of healthy people aged 60+ and never diagnosed with any terminal illness. Participants completed self-reporting measures on psychological distress, coping ability and social support. Caregivers to cancer patients reported high levels of distress, low levels of social support and low levels of coping abilities which are negatively correlated to distress. Increased patient age was found to accentuate these processes. Age and the progression of cancer as a chronic illness present the physician with the reality that focus of care should be on the dyad (patient and caregiver), with high priority given to partners who are informal caregivers.

Aim: Assess relationships between oldest-old (minimum 86 years) patients’ perceived social support to their own and their spousal caregivers’ hope through application of the actor–partner interdependence model (APIM). Patients & methods: 58 dyads of patients and their spousal caregivers completed standardized self-report measures of depression, distress, hope and social support. Results: Patients presented high distress levels. Among patients and spouses, perceived social support was positively correlated to their own level of hope (β = 0.44, p < 0.0001; β = 0.56, p < 0.0001, respectively) and negatively correlated to the other's level of hope (β = -0.25, p < 0.024; β = -0.44, p < 0.0001, respectively). Conclusion: The actor–partner interdependence model was found to be adequate for describing relationships between social support and hope among dyads of oldest-old patients and their spousal caregivers. Patients and caregiver seem to utilize social support to enhance hope.

Objective: To explore the role of personality traits in moderating the relation between COVID‐19 risk perception and treatment adherence, and between risk perception and psychosocial distress in patients diagnosed with cancer.Methods: An online survey (n = 1281) was conducted worldwide in seven countries (Austria, Germany, Hong Kong, Italy, Spain, Sweden, and Turkey). Inclusion criteria were to be 18 years of age or older, have received a cancer diagnosis, and be in treatment or follow‐up. A few moderated regression models were performed with both personality traits and Hierarchical Taxonomy of Psychopathology super‐spectra as moderators.Results: Detachment, negative affectivity, psychoticism and all the super‐spectra significantly moderated the relation between coronavirus risk perception and psychosocial distress, after the adjusting effect of confidence in safeguards. Only negative affectivity moderated the association between coronavirus risk perception and treatment adherence.Conclusions: Personality traits may foster the understanding of how a patient might adjust to cancer treatment and, more generically, to highly stressful events such as the COVID‐19 pandemic. Further research is needed to confirm the results in different cancer stages and types.

Illness perception was found to be a better predictor of psychological outcome among cancer patients than the objective characteristics of illness. The current study explored the association between the perceived threat of illness (a major aspect of illness perception) and depression among cancer patients. We examined the hypothesis that this association will be higher for persons with low External (others) or internal (self) Health Locus of Control (HLC) than for those with high HLC. The study took an exploratory approach regarding the role that different sources of control (external and internal) may assume. Fifty-seven cancer patients completed self-report measures of Perceived Life Threat (PLT), HLC and Depression. The possible moderating role of HLC on the relationship between PLT and Depression was examined. A significant relationship between perceived threat and depression was found only among participants reporting low levels of internal locus of control. The results support the hypothesis that perception of cancer as life threatening is important factor in determining the level of depression among cancer patients. The results also support the differentiation between internal and external HLC and suggest that internal HLC may be more relevant than external HLC in managing perceived threat. Internal locus of control can be interpreted as having a sense of agency and mastery which is important in managing the cognitive perception of the threat of illness. Further research is needed in order to determine the role of external HLC in managing perceived or actual threats.