ABSTRACT

The present study has investigated cancer-related depression in two ethnically different samples of female patients (Romanians and Romanian Hungarians) diagnosed with different forms of this life-threatening disease. As we have presumed, we found that there are differences in cancer-related depressive reactions between the two samples. As a completion, we have contrasted our results with the results of a sample of Hungarian cancer patients drown from the database of Hungarostudy, 2002. The important implications regarding the presence or absence of therapeutical intervention and its relation to the patients� quality of life through the reduction of the level of depression are also discussed.

KEYWORDS: cancer, anxiety, depression, quality of life.