Summary
Most palliative cancer patients experience emotional distress. Despite the frequency of the condition, distress in cancer patients is not rou tinely measured in clinical practice, there fore only a few patients who experience high levels of distress may receive appropriate care. The purpose of this review is to review the distress experienced by this population and its treatments, and to compare their effectiveness. The literature re view was based on articles found in the PubMed database, giving priority to systematic reviews and metaanaly ses published in the last 5 years. The diagnosis of cancer and the confrontation with death have a huge impact for the patients and cause a lot of stress. The stress experienced can provoke mental health disorders or aggravate existing ones. Patients feel the all-encompassing suffering associated with an existential crisis described as holistic suffering. Without proper attention and appropriate interventions to improve this condition, acute stress can become chronic. In turn, chronic stress pro motes the cancer progression and patient’s suffering aggravation. Due to the lack of attention to the problem and the characteristics of the study population, the psychological status of palliative cancer patients, and the effectiveness of interventions to improve this status, have not been sufficiently studied. To date, most evidence of efficacy in this population has mean ingoriented therapy, and dignity therapy. Therapeutic interventions help to overcome stress, adapt to the disease, and strengthen coping strategies. The evidence gath ered globally is sufficient to in corporate these interventions into treatment plans for palliative cancer patients, with the role of the psychiatrist in selecting appropriate psychotherapeutic and pharmaceutical treatments to achieve the goal of palliative care – to alleviate end-of-life suffering.
