Abstract:

Though androgen deprivation therapy is the first choice for patients with advanced prostate cancer, it significantly decreases the quality of life and causes lots of mental disorders in patients, such as self-image disturbance, inferiority, anxiety, phobia, suspicious, fatigue, frustration, depression and so on. Psychological intervention may be an important method to recover from their mental trauma. Nursing staff, who contact with patients most frequently, are responsible for realizing psychological problems of patients in different periods, analyzing the possible causes, mastering the effective countermeasures and providing high-quality psychological care service to improve the quality of life of patients. This paper reviews the causes and corresponding countermeasures for mental disorders of patients with prostate cancer after androgen deprivation therapy, in hopes of helping nurses to conduct effective psychological intervention.

Key words: prostate cancer, androgen deprivation therapy, mental disorder, nursing intervention