Cultural values provide a system for evaluating situations we encounter; yet, they have seldom been tested in psychosocial oncology. The present research addressed this gap by testing the hypothesis that cancer-related events are stressful because they threaten highly regarded cultural values. As part of a larger study, 417 Western-born Caucasians and 121 Asian-born Chinese immigrants with head and neck cancer (HNC) completed the Individualism-Collectivism Scale (ICS), which measures their endorsement of four cultural syndromes (i.e., vertical-individualism, horizontal-individualism, vertical-collectivism, and horizontal-collectivism). However, the ICS did not tap these constructs identically across these samples. Consequently, I extracted a new common 3-factor measurement model: (a) Camaraderie with Co-workers; (b) Commitment to Family; and (c) Competitiveness. I cross-validated the new model in the HNC samples from which it was derived and in three independent chronic-disease samples. In all cases, results indicated weak invariance. To test the hypothesis, respondents reported the causes of stress (i.e., stressor appraisals) for 24 common HNC-related events. Stressor appraisals reported by a subset of respondents (196 Western-born Caucasians and 44 Chinese immigrants) were categorized based on whether they reflected threats to the cultural values tapped by the new scales. Because only stressor appraisals reflecting threats to commitment to family were identified, I tested the
association between commitment to family and the numbers of stressor appraisals reflecting threats to that value. Hierarchical Poisson regression analysis indicated a significant Culture Group x Commitment to Family interaction effect (p = .045): the number of stressor appraisals reflecting threats to commitment to family increased with increasing sense of commitment to family in Chinese immigrants, but not in Western-born Caucasians. Hence, cultural values, in part, explain cross-cultural variation in the experience of cancer stresses. Attention to cultural values can facilitate culturally sensitive patient-centered care by identifying culturally specific causes of stress for targeted psychosocial interventions.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:TORONTO/oai:tspace.library.utoronto.ca:1807/65716 |
| Date | 13 August 2014 |
| Creators | Payne, Ada |
| Contributors | Devins, Gerald |
| Source Sets | University of Toronto |
| Language | en_ca |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
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