Discussion
Personality is closely related to the individual’s psychology,
and the patient’s mental health status can be reflected by
assessment of personality [21]. The P scale can reflect the
patient’s neuroticism or emotional stability; smaller P scale
scores suggest an introverted personality that may relate
to apathy and social isolation [22]. However, such patients
may also respond more calmly to major events compared
to those with an outgoing personality (higher P scale). The
E scale represents the patient’s extroversion (E), N scale
represents the patient’s autonomic nervous function, and L
scale reflects the patient’s masked affection of personality
characteristics. This study showed that a psychological nursing
intervention decreased the P scale and E scale scores of
patients with esophageal cancer. This suggests that patients
treated with the psychological nursing intervention had significant
introversion. Such patients have a quiet nature and
pessimistic characteristics. However, such subjects may also
have a scrupulous nature and have mental endurance. Of
course, these characteristics also may be related to the living
environment, occupation and other general background
of patients and their families [23].
Patients in both the control and intervention groups had
no change in L scale scores from pre-treatment to posttreatment
and had persistently higher L scores. Higher L
scores indicate that patients have low psychological masked
affection and high authenticity. In contrast, high N scale