Does optimism facilitate effectiveness of therapy based on positive emotions in cancer patients?

Abstract

It is not clear whether optimism moderates the effect of psychological interventions on cancer patients. The present paper analyzes whether optimism was related to the effectiveness of an intervention based on the potentiation of positive emotions in a sample of 24 colorectal cancer patients who received over chemotherapy. The results indicated that the intervention tended to improve the quality of life in one of the dimensions of the EORTC questionnaire, but this improvement was not related to patients' levels of optimism. It seems that the possible beneficial effects of this psychological intervention do not depend on patients having greater or lesser degrees of optimism. However more research is needed in patients with other tumors or other treatments to determine the possible moderating role of optimism on the effects of psychological interventions in the health field.