[Close family relationships and the emotional distress in lung cancer patients awaiting surgery and healthy controls].

The purpose of this study was to look for effects of attachment styles for emotional distress presented in depression in 117 lung cancer patients under surgical treatment and in 112 healthy subjects. The three attachment styles were assessed by means of the instrument based on Hazan and Shaver's (1987). Depression was measured by self-reporting Symptom Checklist 90 (SCL-90). Manova variance analysis revealed significant main effect of the factor "group" which indicated higher level of depression in cancer patients than controls, significant main effect of factor "attachment style" which exhibited higher level of depression in the anxious-ambivalent subjects than in the secure ones, significant main effect of interaction between these two factors which revealed higher level of depression in the anxious-ambivalent style in lung cancer patients than in controls. Analysis of correlations indicated that the patients' secure style was adversely associated with depression, the anxious-ambivalent style positively correlated with patients' depression, the avoidant style did not correlate significantly with depression neither in healthy nor affected by the disease subjects. The secure subjects and the avoidant subjects did not differ significantly in the level of depression. The results indicate that the secure style and the avoidant style may protect lung cancer subjects before operation from excessive reacting with distress demonstrated in depressive symptoms. The ambivalent style was favorable for higher depression and it could be a risk factor for mood disorders in clinical group.