Psychosocial Adaptation to Illness by Women with Breast Cancer and women with Cancer at Other Sites

Abstract

Claims that distinctive psychological sequelae are aqsociated with breast canccr treated by mastectomy were evaluated by means of an aggregated case study strategy. Intensive semistructured interviews were conducted with 36 women: 14 had breast cancer, 14 had gynecologic cancers, and 8 had cancer at other sites. Q-sort methodology was used to quantify the interview material. Considerable interindividual variation in psychosocial response to cancer was found, but the variation was not associated with the site of the disease: that is, the women with breast cancer (or gynecologic cancers) were no more like each other than they were like women with cancer at different sites. However, the breast cancer patients tended to adapt more effectively to their illness than did the others. Age, marital status, time since primary treatment, and prognosis were not significantly associated with psychosocial status, but severity of physical impairment and discomfort had significant and widely ramified implications for patients' psychological functioning.