Latent profiles of self-advocacy and their relationship with fear of progression, family resilience, and cognitive emotion regulation among male patients with liver cancer.

OBJECTIVE: To explore self-advocacy in male patients with liver cancer, identify heterogeneous subgroups, and examine their relationship with fear of progression, family resilience, and cognitive emotion regulation to a reference for individualized precise nursing intervention. METHODS: Two hundred seven male patients with liver cancer completed the general information questionnaire, Fear of Progression Questionnaire-Short Form, Family Hardiness Index, Cognitive Emotion Regulation Questionnaire-Short, and Self-Advocacy in Cancer Survivorship between August 2024 and June 2025. Latent profile analysis was used to classify self-advocacy, and multiple logistic regression was used to analyze the factors of influence for each subgroup. RESULTS: Patients were divided into three subgroups based on their levels of self-advocacy: the "balanced-low interaction group" (25.60%), the "comprehensive-multidimensional strengths group" (55.56%), and the "imbalanced-low decision-high interaction group" (18.84%). The multivariate logistic regression analysis showed that place of residence, fear of progression, and cognitive emotion regulation were all associated with self-advocacy (P < 0.05). However, family resilience did not show a statistically significant association in this study (P > 0.05). CONCLUSIONS: Self-advocacy in male patients with liver cancer is heterogeneous and presents in three distinct categories. The patient's place of residence, fear of progression, and cognitive emotion regulation are key factors influencing their self-advocacy model. This suggests that clinical practice should pay attention to the patients' psychosocial characteristics and implement targeted support and guidance to enhance self-advocacy and adaptive coping.