Coping strategies of top managers, the state of theirs immune systems and risk of cancer, annual meeting of the Psychoneuroimmunology Research Society in Brighton, UK (8-11.June 2016)

Abstrakt

We would like to introduce our project focused on relation between coping strategies and state of immune system. The project is focused on comparison between two groups of people.

First group is top managers, where we expect significant long-term stressfull working conditions. Second group are people (with similar characteristics compared to the first group) who were affected by cancer in recent history.

Following the comparison of results from these groups, provides a foundation for gaining interesting information both in the field of coping strategies and approaches to managing life worries, but also values of the immune system. We use combination of two metodological approaches.

From the area of psychology we use several questionnaires focused on perceived level of stress, preferred coping strategies and personality. We use following testing methods: Stress Profile (Novack, 2006), Bochum Inventory of Personality (Hossip, 2011), Coping Strategy Inventory (Tobin, 2001), Overal Psychological Resistance (Miksik, 2004).

From the area of immunology we use detail immunological examination (taken from blood sample) with main focus on: NK cells, T-cytotoxic lymphocytes, T-helpers lymphocytes, T-regulatory lymphocytes, proinflammatory parameters and tumor markers. We are going to present result of the first phase of the project, executed on the sample of participants.