Emotional, cognitive, and physical well-being during the wait for breast biopsy results

Abstract

The experience of waiting for breast biopsy results can cause clinically significant levels of psychological distress.

Objective

This study is a replication and extension of previous work examining the well-being of patients at a breast biopsy appointment. Expanding on a previous study, we aim to identify predictors of well-being following the appointment (i.e. waiting for results).

Design

In this longitudinal study, female patients (N = 197) were surveyed at their breast biopsy appointments and then completed daily surveys assessing distress and coping during the week-long wait for results.

Main Outcome Measures

Surveys asked about patient characteristics, subjective health, cancer history, support availability, outcome expectations, and distress.

Results/Conclusions

Consistent with the previous study, health history and demographic factors were largely unassociated with distress, this time while waiting for biopsy results. Latina ethnicity emerged one of the few predictors of coping, pointing to opportunities for differential clinical interventions that take cultural factors into account. Finally, anxiety was highest at the beginning and end of the wait for biopsy results, suggesting that interventions may be most effective following a breast biopsy and the days prior to learning one’s result.

Keywords:

• Breast cancer
• biopsy
• uncertainty
• waiting
• worry

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Funding

The study was funded by the University of California, Riverside Faculty Senate and by the University of California Office of the President.

Notes

1 Covariates used in these analyses were as follows: sadness at the appointment for negative emotion, happiness at the appointment for positive emotion, anxiety at the appointment for anxiety, somatic symptoms at the biopsy appointment for somatic symptoms, and repetitive thought at the appointment for repetitive thought.

2 It is possible that small demographic effects exist and were not detected by this study due to limited statistical power; however, a lack of demographic effects is consistent with the previous study (Sweeny et al., 2019).