DOI: 10.47582/jompac.2017789 ISSN: 2717-7505

Psychological symptoms and psycho-oncology awareness among cancer patients in a newly established post-earthquake oncology center: a cross-sectional study with prospective participant recruitment

Fatih Sağlam, Şükrü Alperen Pekdemir, Esma Uğuztemur
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Aims: Cancer and its treatment are often accompanied by psychological symptoms; this highlights the importance of psycho-oncological care. This study aimed to investigate the psychological symptoms and psycho-oncological awareness of cancer patients following a major earthquake. Methods: This single-center, cross-sectional study used prospective participant recruitment between July 1, 2026, and August 1, 2026. A total of 78 cancer patients aged 18 and older were included in the study, and they were administered a questionnaire and the Symptom Checklist-90-Revised (SCL-90-R). Results: Most participants were female, married, with children, unemployed, primary school graduates, and residents of the urban center. More than 20% of cancer patients were found to have high scores on subscales measuring depressive symptoms, additional items, obsessive-compulsive, and somatization symptoms. While 15.38% of participants indicated that they had heard of the term “psycho-oncology” before, 8.97% stated that they were knowledgeable about psycho-oncology. 14.10% of participants also stated that they received psychological support during the course of their illness. Higher psychological symptom scores were observed among participants reporting weight loss, pain, female gender, urban residence, lack of knowledge about the illness and the belief that the earthquake had caused their illness. Conclusion: In conclusion, the findings indicate a significant burden of psychological symptoms among cancer patients receiving treatment at an oncology center established after the February 6 earthquake, while also revealing that awareness of psycho-oncological services remains limited. Routine psychological assessment should be integrated into oncological care, and supportive interventions should be tailored to patients’ demographic, clinical, and psychosocial characteristics. Further multicenter studies with larger samples and more comprehensive assessments of earthquake-related experiences, psycho-oncological awareness, and access to psycho-oncological services are needed to better characterize psychological symptoms in oncology populations in post-disaster environments.

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