Mental Health in Head and Neck Cancer

Acknowledging the health behaviors that lead to HNC, as well as the highly impactful location and functional changes from the cancer and treatment, has led to increasing interest in MH in HNC. The distressing aspects of HNC affect patients, their caregivers, and their physicians alike. MH must be a priority from diagnosis through to the end of these patients’ lives. Here we have summarized the known elements of MH in HNC. We have determined that health behaviors, such as tobacco use, alcohol use, and high-risk sexual behaviors that lead to heighten HPV infection risk, play a long-lasting and complex role with distress levels in HNC. Psychiatric illness is one aspect of psychosocial distress that can more easily be studied due to existing clinical frameworks from which to begin investigation, though other elements of distress are more difficult to identify and quantify. We have highlighted advances in stress management for improving MH in these patients, most notably cognitive behavioral therapy-based interventions. This summary has led to the conclusion that the best is yet to come, with the open opportunities to define the mental health challenges in the landscape of HNC, to generate effective and validated treatments, and to pair treatments with patients and their caregivers