PTSD associated to cancer: Theoretical overview

The following paper aims to examine the evidence of the oncology disease as threatening stress event, considering the methodologic and conceptual questions of effective literature. In this sense, the understanding of the psychological morbidity of the diagnosed patients of cancer within the theoretical frame of the Posttraumatic Stress Disorder is facilitated. At the present time, the cancer is defined as a disease chronic illness, constituted by manifold stress events that is repeated in the time. In addition, the degree of perceived threat in cancer is directed towards the future, and it is moderate by the type of tumorlike location. Throughout the present article, the problems of definition of the own upheaval are approached, delimiting symptoms, subsyndrome and syndrome; as well as, methodological problems and assessment methods derived from its application.