Introduction:

Persons diagnosed with cancer and who are under treatment suffer from physical, emotional, and social stress which in turn has an impact on their mental health. Therefore, it is important to explore the self-management practices aimed at relieving the burden of the related stress associated factors.

Method:

This is a transversal and predictive study with intentional and non probabilistic sampling on 160 persons diagnosed with cancer. The Partners in Health (PIH), Self-rated Health, Depresion of the PHQ-8, as well as the Analogous Visual Scales were used. A multiple linear regression model, the effect of the difference, and the statistical power using the stepwise method were all calculated.

Results:

Two statistically significant predicting variables (p<.05) were identified: sleep problems β=-1.310 and depressive disorder β=-.440, with a variance of 10%, Durbin-Watson test of 1,658, effect size of 0.15, and a power of 0.95.

Discussion and conclusion:

Persons with cancer usually demonstrate deficient self-management practices. Emotional factors which drive these behaviors were identified: stress, depressive disorder, and sleep problems. It is suggested to conduct further research in order to identify other social and demographic barriers related to the self-management of cancer.