The longitudinal relationship between self-compassion and cancer patients' unmet supportive care needs.

OBJECTIVES: Unmet supportive care needs are associated with psychological symptoms such as depression and anxiety. However, so far, few studies have explored the protective psychological factors of unmet needs. Therefore, this study intends to explore the protective effect of self-compassion on unmet needs of Chinese cancer patients and to examine the predictive role of self-compassion on these needs during treatment. METHODS: A longitudinal study was performed at Shaanxi Provincial Cancer Hospital in Xi'an, China. A total of 153 heterogeneous cancer patients were assessed after the first diagnosis (T1), at the beginning (T2) and end (T3) of medical treatment. Hierarchical linear regression analyses were used to examine the research questions. RESULTS: Cross-sectional regression analyses showed that self-compassion at T1 was significantly related to psychological needs at T1. Negative self-compassion at T1 was significantly related to total unmet needs, psychological needs, health system, and information and sexual needs. Longitudinal regression analyses showed that self-compassion at T1 significantly predicted total unmet needs; health system and information (HSI) needs at T2, psychological needs at T3, and negative self-compassion at T1 significantly predicted total unmet needs, HSI needs, physical needs, and patient care needs at T2 when controlling for unmet needs at T1. Positive self-compassion was not a predictor of unmet needs. CONCLUSIONS: Self-compassion can be a protective factor of unmet needs in cancer patients. Future intervention studies should focus on improving the overall level of self-compassion and reducing the level of negative self-compassion in cancer patients to reduce patients' unmet needs.

Self-compassion and fear of cancer recurrence in Chinese breast cancer patients: The mediating role of maladaptive cognitive styles.

OBJECTIVES: Previous studies have examined the benefits of self-compassion for psychological symptoms in breast cancer patients; however, little is known about the role of self-compassion for patients' fear of cancer recurrence (FCR) as well as the underlying mediating mechanisms. This study aimed to examine the effect of self-compassion on FCR, and whether maladaptive cognitive styles mediate this relationship. METHODS: This cross-sectional study included 304 females with breast cancer. A self-report questionnaire was used to assess patients' self-compassion, maladaptive cognitive styles (i.e., rumination and catastrophising), and FCR. Parallel mediation analyses were conducted to examine the research questions. RESULTS: Approximately half of the patients with breast cancer reported elevated levels of FCR. Self-compassion was negatively related to FCR, and the relationship between self-compassion and FCR was mediated by catastrophising, whereas rumination did not significantly mediate the relationship between self-compassion and FCR. CONCLUSIONS: Our findings suggest that self-compassion and catastrophising are closely associated with FCR in patients with breast cancer, and catastrophising is a mediator between self-compassion and FCR. Clinicians could reduce breast cancer patients' FCR by enhancing their self-compassion and improving their maladaptive cognitive styles.

Fear-focused Self-compassion Therapy for young breast cancer patients' fear of cancer recurrence: Study protocol of a randomized controlled trial.

Background: In China, there are a growing number of young women being diagnosed with breast cancer. Fear of Cancer Recurrence (FCR) has become one of the major psychological concerns reported by young breast cancer patients. Yet, there is a lack of psychological intervention tailored for reducing FCR for Chinese young breast cancer patients. In the current study, the Fear-focused Self-compassion Therapy is developed to help Chinese young breast cancer patients to manage FCR. The therapy was developed based on FCR development theories and self-compassion related therapy. The primary objective is to evaluate the short-term and long-term effectiveness of Fear-focused Self-compassion Therapy. The secondary objective is to examine the underlying mechanisms of therapy in reducing FCR in young breast cancer patients. Methods: The Fear-focused Self-compassion Therapy consists of 8-week face to face group sessions. This study will be a randomized controlled trial with 160 Chinese young female breast cancer patients with severe FCR. Participants will be randomized to the therapy group or a usual care control group (1:1). Measurements will be completed at baseline, immediately completing intervention, 3, 6, and 12 months later. Primary outcomes are FCR severity, and secondary outcomes include symptoms of depression and anxiety, satisfaction with therapy, and cost-effectiveness of the therapy. Discussion: If successful, this study will provide an effective psychological intervention to treat FCR for young breast cancer patients in China, and illuminate the underlying mechanisms of the Fear-focused Self-compassion Therapy in reducing FCR. Clinical trial registration: ClinicalTrials.gov: NCT04965428. Registered 23rd July 2021, https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT04965428?cond=fear+of+cancer+recurrence&draw=2&rank=1.

Light field calibration and 3D shape measurement based on epipolar-space.

Light field camera calibration is much more complicated by the fact that a single point in the 3D scene appears many times in the image plane. Compared to the previous geometrical models of light field camera, which describe the relationship between 3D point in the scene and 4D light field, we proposed an epipolar-space (EPS) based geometrical model in this paper, which determines the relationship between 3D point in the scene and 3-parameter vector in the EPS. Moreover, a close-form solution for the 3D shape measurement based on the geometrical model is accomplished. Our calibration method includes an initial linear solution and nonlinear optimization with the Levenberg-Marquardt algorithm. The light field model is validated with the commercially available light field camera Lytro iIIum, and the performance of 3D shape measurement is verified by both real scene data and the data set on the internet.

Projector recalibration of three-dimensional profilometry system.

In three-dimensional profilometry, the primary disadvantage of the monocular system equipped with a projector and a camera is that it is often highly dependent on the projector calibration. The projector calibration errors of the principal point and focal length are analyzed in this paper, and result in measuring the object deviation, including not only the rigid transformation, but also the scale transformation. Unfortunately, the deviation cannot be revealed by reprojection, the normal error analysis method. Here, a systematic recalibration method is proposed to correct the projector calibration errors of the principal point and focal length, where an accurate binocular three-dimensional measurement system is applied. The experimental results show that the method is effective. The three-dimensional measurement accuracy of the monocular system is improved approximately from 1.0 mm before projector recalibration to 0.10 mm afterward.

[Three-Dimensional Facial Wrinkle Measurement and Quantification].

The three-dimensional facial wrinkle measurement and quantification have important applications in many fields, which are implemented by an entire system proposed in this paper. The system uses stereo vision method based on structured-light to achieve three-dimensional facial wrinkle measuring, where the system calibration, corresponding points matching and three-dimensional reverse method are implemented. Furthermore, the facial wrinkle is considered as the noise attached on smooth facial profi le so that the facial wrinkle is acquired quantitatively by three-dimensional noise acquisition and morphologic processing method. The experimental results show that this system can accomplish accurate facial wrinkle acquisition and objective quantifi cation. This system has comprehensive applications as it is non-contact and it has high precision.