Is there a relationship between positive affect and other dimensions of quality of life in colorectal cancer patients?

It can be stated from the previous research that positive emotions should allow to better health outcomes in sick populations. The aim of the present work is to know the state-of-the-art of how positive affect (PA) relates with quality of life in colorectal cancer (CRC) patients, as well as to give some guidelines to develop more efficacious psychological interventions in CRC patients to enhance positive affect. This review describes a search of published literature from January 2001 to March of 2012 on the Medline, ISI Web of Knowledge, Psycho Inf and Cochrane databases using publications that contain positive emotions, positive affect, health outcomes, quality of life, CRC and cancer. These articles were classified into two groups: a) "descriptive papers" b) "interventional studies". Results from "descriptive papers" suggest that positive affect (PA) was significantly associated with greater levels of general health, better social functioning, benefit finding, positive changes, low depression, less anxiety and greather psychological well-being. PA also increases when different activities are developed. The overall results from interventional studies suggest that the interventions described can be recommended for improving patient's levels of positive affect. The present review offers some suggestions which could be useful for CRC patients.