Negative cancer stereotypes and disease‐specific self‐concept in head and neck cancer

BACKGROUND: Life-threatening diseases, such as head and neck cancer (HNCa), can stimulate the emergence of a new disease-specific self-concept. We hypothesized that (i) negative cancer-stereotypes invoke distancing, which inhibits the adoption of a disease-specific self-concept and (ii) patient characteristics, disease and treatment factors, and cancer-related stressors moderate the phenomenon. METHODS: Head and neck cancer outpatients (N = …