The Comparison of Personality Characteristics and Ambivalence over Emotional Expressiveness in Patients with Gastrointestinal Cancer with a Non-Patient Group

Introduction & Cancer is an old disease and now a global problem. Gastrointestinal cancers are one of the most widespread cancers and influence a lot of people’s life. The purpose of this study is the investigation of personality characteristics and ambivalence over emotional expressiveness in patients with gastrointestinal cancer in comparison with a non-patient group. For comparison of a Patient group with a non-patient group, 100 patients with gastrointestinal cancer were selected from those who referred to Velayat Hospital of Qazvin. The non-patient group was 100 persons mentally and physically healthy and they were sampled from the general population. They were matched demographically with the patient group. Both groups completed the personality characteristics scale (NEO-FFI) and the ambivalence over emotional expressiveness questionnaire (AEQ) test. The collected data were analyzed with MANOVA. MANOVA analysis of these 200 cases showed that there was difference between the patient and non-patient group with α =0.05 in neuroticism, agreeableness, conscientiousness and ambivalence over emotional expressiveness, but in extraversion and openness to experience, there was no significant difference between these two groups. Patients with Gastrointestinal cancer have more scores than non-patient group in neuroticism, agreeableness, conscientiousness and ambivalence over emotional expressiveness.