Coping Strategies in Elderly Colorectal Cancer Patients Vargas Román, Keyla Tovar Gálvez, María Isabel Liñán González, Antonio Cañadas De La Fuente, Guillermo Arturo Fuente Solana, Emilia I. De La Díaz Rodríguez, Consuelo Lourdes Colorectal cancer Coping strategies Quality of life The author(s) disclose the receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship and/or publication of this article: this study was supported by a grant from the Education Ministry (Program FPU16/01437), Madrid, Spanish Government. In Spain, 34,331 new cases of colorectal cancer were diagnosed in 2018 and 15,923 individuals died from this disease in the same year. The highest incidence of colorectal cancer is among individuals aged 65–75 years and the physiological consequences of aging, alongside the effects of the disease and its treatment, can exacerbate their physical deterioration and cognitive impairment and reduce their social relationships. The learning of coping strategies may help to improve the quality of life of patients after cancer diagnosis. To test the hypothesis that the utilization of coping strategies can improve the quality of life of elderly patients with colorectal cancer, PubMed and EBSCO databases were searched, up to 2021, using the following terms: “coping strategies and colorectal cancer” with “anxiety”, “quality of life”, “depression”, “unmet needs”, “optimism”, “intimacy”, “distress”, “self-efficacy” and “self-esteem” with Boolean operators “AND”, “OR”. The literature search retrieved 641 titles/abstracts written in English. After an exhaustive analysis, only 7 studies met the inclusion criteria. Randomized evidence was scant and was reported only in 3/7 of the studies analyzed. Data from available randomized evidence support that patients improved on their depression and quality of life and felt more prepared to deal with their cancer. Coping strategies in patients with colorectal cancer were effective in improving patient adaptation to their new situation. Healthcare professionals working with these patients should receive training in this complementary treatment, to be able to conduct comprehensive care in order to improve the quality of life of these patients. 2022-03-21T07:44:44Z 2022-03-21T07:44:44Z 2022-01-26 journal article Vargas-Román, K... [et al.]. Coping Strategies in Elderly Colorectal Cancer Patients. Cancers 2022, 14, 608. [https://doi.org/10.3390/cancers14030608] http://hdl.handle.net/10481/73578 10.3390/cancers14030608 eng http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/es/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/es/ open access Atribución 3.0 España Atribución 3.0 España MDPI