Impact of a clown intervention in the symptoms of anxiety and depression of pacientes with cancer

Abstract

Introduction: Patients with cancer frequently present anxiety and depressive disorders as comorbidities, which may bring important negative impacts to the prognosis of the cancer itself. Moreover, these mental disorders may impair functioning and quality of life of cancer patients. Nevertheless, many cases are not diagnosed and hence aren't properly treated. Interventions with clowns inside hospitals have been spreading all over the world in the last decades and some studies on the effects they bring to inpatients are already showing up in the literature. The hospital care combined with clowning may be an alternative to supplement the care for these oncologic inpatients. However, researches on the effects of intervention with clowns in the mental health of oncologic inpatients are yet to be done. Objectives: Assess the impact of clowning inside hospitals on the evolution of anxious and depressive symptoms in oncologic inpatients, compared with a control group. Hypothesis:The intervention with clowns decreases anxious and depressive symptoms of oncologic inpatients, when compared with oncologic inpatients who did not receive this intervention. Methods: The HADS (Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale) will be used to assess anxious and depressive symptoms of the patients who received the clown intervention and of the control group. Data on age, gender, years of cancer diagnosis, length of previous hospitalization (before his inclusion in the present research), type of neoplasia, schooling, marital status and type of current treatment. All these variables will be included in the statistical mixed model analysis.