Relationships among self-perceived burden, fear of progression, and psychological capital in postoperative lung cancer patients

This study examined the relationships among positive psychological capital (PsyCap), fear of progression (FoP), and self-perceived burden (SPB) in postoperative patients with non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), with a focus on the mediating role of PsyCap. A total of 251 patients from a tertiary cancer hospital in China completed validated measures of SPB, FoP, and PsyCap. Mediation analysis was performed using the PROCESS macro with 5000 bootstrap resamples. Overall, 51.7% of patients reported clinically significant FoP. SPB was positively associated with FoP and negatively associated with PsyCap. PsyCap partially mediated the association between SPB and FoP, accounting for 44.1% of the total association. These findings indicate that PsyCap may represent an important psychological pathway associated with the relationship between SPB and FoP and suggest that interventions aimed at strengthening psychological resources could help alleviate FoP in NSCLC patients. Longitudinal studies are needed to further validate these pathways.