HOLOCAUST CANCER-PATIENTS - A COMPARATIVE-STUDY

THERE IS as yet no consensus on the long-term effects of severe life-t hreatening stresses. In an earlier study (Baider et al. 1992), we gain ed some understanding of this issue by addressing a specific question: How do individuals who have undergone severe stress in the past cope with a current stress? We investigated whether severe stress occurring in the past had a long-term effect on present coping capabilities. We addressed the question by studying a group of Holocaust survivors (se vere past stress) who were diagnosed as having cancer (current stress) and compared them to a matched group of cancer patients with no past history of trauma. The matching was done on most demographic variables (gender, age, marital status, and education), as well as on disease v ariables (site and stage of cancer, time since cancer diagnosis, previ ous and present treatments). The results were unequivocal.