The psychological (emotional and cognitive) performance of spouse's cancer during and after treatment

According to the last edition of APA (DSM-IV-TR)، the cancer has been known as a traumatic stress that can affect on Psychological and cognitive health in spouses as a caregiver and might show the signs of PTSD. Attention to this aspect is very important for treatment in cancer patients. This study examined the effect of cancer (during treatment and after treatment) on the emotional performance (anxiety، depression and post-traumatic stress disorder) and cognitive performance (autobiographical memory) on their spouses. 120 individuals in 3 groups (spouses of cancer patients (during treatment)، spouses of cancer patients (after treatment) and the healthy group)، that have been matched in sex; age and intelligence attend to the research. The instruments of the research include the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale-Revised (WAIS-R)، the Persian versions of the Impact of Event Scale-Revised (IES-R)، the Beck Depression Inventory-II (BDI-II)، the Beck Anxiety Inventory (BAI)، the Autobiographical Memory Test (AMT) and the Autobiographical Memory Inventory (AMI). Results indicated that no significant difference in depression was found between all three groups but the target group (during treatment) showed more psychological distress than the control group. Both of target groups indicated no significant difference in PTSD at all and control group showed higher levels of episodic specificity، episodic memory and autobiographical memory scores than the other groups. The findings are discussed in terms of the proposed theory about interaction of emotion and cognition، especially PTSD