Patient competencies, coping self‐efficacy, and coping: Do they change during oncological inpatient rehabilitation and beyond?

Objective The construct of Patient Competencies (PCs) has been suggested to allow a more comprehensive understanding of cancer patients' abilities to confront emotion‐ and problem‐focused coping tasks arising from the diagnosis, treatment and survivorship of cancer. While providing a reliable and valid measure of PCs, research thus far has not clarified whether PCs change across time and/or through intervention. This study asks whether PCs change during oncological inpatient rehabilitation and beyond. Methods N = 377 breast, colorectal, and prostate cancer patients from clinics for oncological rehabilitation were included to complete self‐report measures of PC, coping and self‐efficacy for coping with cancer at the beginning and the end of rehabilitation and 9 months afterward. In order to determine differences between tumor diagnostic groups and changes across time 3 (tumor site) x 3 (time) repeated measures analyses of variance were computed. Results Tumor diagnostic groups differed only marginally in PCs, coping self‐efficacy and coping. The PCs of self‐regulation and managing distress and coping self‐efficacy improved slightly during rehabilitation but returned to initial levels at 9 months. Differential improvement was evident in the competencies of seeking information and interest in social services. Two of five coping behaviors decreased markedly from the end of rehabilitation to follow‐up. Conclusions This study suggests that oncological inpatient rehabilitation may contribute to advancing PCs, albeit to a limited extent. Aside from addressing conceptual, diagnostic and measurement issues, future research should clarify which interventions may be most effective for advancing problem‐ and emotion‐focused PCs.