STRUCTURAL RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN PSYCHOLOGICAL DISORDERS, QUALITY OF LIFE AND COPING STYLES AMONG BRAIN DISORDER PATIENTS

Abstract

Objective: Brain and nervous system cancer incidence was one of the ten most common cancers in Malaysia. The study intends to model the structural relationship of MDD, anxiety disorders, other psychiatric disorders, quality of life, coping styles and their associated factors among neurological disorder (brain tumour / brain disorder) patients. Methods: The EORTC-Quality of Life, Brief COPE, Single Item Social Support, MINI International Neuropsychiatric Interview and Patient Health Questionnaires were utilised in the study. Results: The multivariate normality kurtosis was 6.174 with c.r = 2.440 obtained in this SEM model. Chi-square normalized by degrees of freedom, (χ̰2 /df) =1.086, p= 0.353. The RMSEA was 0.03, TLI = 0.988 and CFI =0.999 were obtained in the study. All 8 paths out of 10 paths were significant with p-values less than 0.05 (two-tailed) with R2 values ranging from 0.48 to 0.55 which indicates that the variance explained ranged from 48% for emotional functioning to 55% for severity of depression. The severity of MDD has positive relationship with insomnia and panic disorder lifetime and negative relationship with self distraction coping styles. Meanwhile emotional functioning had negative relationship with fatigue, venting and panic disorder lifetime and positive relationship with global health status. The emotional functioning also was correlated negatively with the severity of MDD (p < 0.005).  Conclusion: Therefore based on the path analysis, the main contributing factors of MDD severity were emotional functioning, insomnia, self distraction coping and panic disorder lifetime. The emotional functioning of the patients were influenced by the fatigue, global health status, venting coping styles and panic disorder lifetime and this increased the severity of MDD among the patients.  Therefore the role of quality of life and coping styles on depression and anxiety should not be neglected. The clinician, health psychologist, psychiatrist, and counselor in this country need to implement better treatments for the effected patients.