Page 43 - IJSA, Vol. 6, No 1, 2023

International Journal of Science Annals, Vol. 6, No. 1, 2023
рrint ISSN: 2617-2682; online ISSN: 2707-3637; DOI:10.26697/ijsa

Introduction
Malignant diseases, including stomach cancer, are The data were analyzed using statistical software IBM
among the biggest health problems nowadays. Stomach SPSS Statistics 25.0 and MedCalc Version 19.6.3. In the
cancer is the fifth most common cancer in the world and first part of the analyzes, we used descriptive statistics
the third most common cause of death due to cancer. to analyze potential differences between patients with
While behavior related risk factors (e.g., smoking, different characteristics. After that, the following tests
alcohol abuse) were often investigated in previous were performed in order to analyze potential statistical
research (den Hoed & Kuipers, 2016; Dong & Thrift, significance between the different groups: Fisher’s exact
2017), we suggest that socio-economic factors can also test and chi-square test for the relationship between
play an important role and do not have to be neglected categorical variables and Student’s t-test or Mann-
in prevention programs. For instance, early research Whitney. The level of significance at which the null
suggest that stress influences the carcinogenic process hypothesis is rejected was p<0.05. Additionally,
(Sklar & Anisman, 1981). Further study found that in Multiple binary logistic regression analysis was applied
indigenous populations there is a higher burden of to establish the factors for fatal outcome from stomach
stomach cancer (Arnold et al., 2014). Also ethnic- cancer and quantitative assessment of their influence.
specific differences were found in an U.S. study Kolmogorov-Smirnov and Shapiro-Wilk test were
(Camargo et al., 2011). performed to test the assumption of normal distribution
There are several previous studies, which analyze the of the metric variables.
role of socio-economic factors on the incidents and
mortality of gastric cancer (Dong & Thrift, 2017; Kim Results
et al., 2020; Sarkar et al., 2022; Song et al., 2015; Tonelli Distribution of Potential Risk Factors in Gastric
et al., 1997). However, they are relatively few in number Cancer Patients
and the results are mainly contradictory to each other. The results of the comparative analysis of the frequency
Moreover, they do not look into factors such as job type distribution of potential risk factors among the patients
or stress level on the probability of having gastric cancer are summarized in Table 1. The results suggest that the
or of negative outcome. most common factor is lack of physical activity (79.5%),
Medical and social support factors are important for the followed by smoking (53.6%) and accompanying
quality of life of oncology patients (Nikolov & cardiovascular diseases (45.5%). With lower but
Georgieva, 2022). noticeable frequency are overweight (18.6%) and
Understanding the role of socio-economic factors on alcohol abuse (6.7%).
incidence and mortality can contribute improving the
health care of groups in the society, which are most Table 1
Frequency Distribution of Potential Risk Factors
prone to have high incidence and high mortality rate.
The aim of the study. To provide empirical data for the Patients
significance of behavioral and social factors on gastric Indicators Person (n) Percentage (%)
cancer incidence and mortality. In particular, we focus Physical activity
on the analyses of the role of the factors, which affect Yes 77 20.5
the increase of life expectancy and quality of life of No 298 79.5
stomach cancer patients, as well as we discuss potential Smoking
mitigation of the negative mental and social impacts of Yes 200 53.6
the disease. No 173 46.4
Cardiovascular
Materials and Methods diseases
In order to address the research questions, we have Yes 142 45.5
conducted a retrospective clinical-epidemiological No 170 54.5
study with 378 people diagnosed with gastric cancer. Unhealthy eating
The study focusses on a comparative analysis of Yes 124 33.1
behavioral, socio-medical, epidemiological and No 251 66.9
psychosocial aspects of gastric cancer. The data were Presence of
collected at the University Clinic in Heidelberg, stress*
Germany, using especially design questionnaire. To Yes 108 28.6
create the data set, we have used documents from the No 270 71.4
University Clinic over a 13-year period, including Higher education
patient examination reports, pathological examinations, Yes 92 24.6
discharge information and other clinical documents. No 282 75.4
Information on the following variables was collected: Overweight
health-related behavior and social characteristics of the Yes 70 18.6
patients, accompanying diseases, as well as No 306 81.4
psychosocial context and self-reported opinion about Alcohol abuse
their own health assessed using a standardized Yes 25 6.7
questionnaire. The final sample consists of 234 (61.9%) No 350 93.3
men and 144 (38.1%) women. Note. *According to self-reported patient’s opinion.

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