Abstract
This research aims to study the psychological condition of breast cancer patients and survivors. More specifically, the main objectives of this study are: first of all, to record the prevalence of posttraumatic stress disorder and posttraumatic growth in women diagnosed with breast cancer; secondly, to explore their interrelation and finally to investigate the demographic, medical and psychosocial factors that contribute to the development of these phenomena. In order to achieve these goals, the study, quantitative and cross sectional in design was conducted in the public clinic for breast screening and clinical examination at “Helena Venizelou” hospital, from July 2012 to October 2013. The sample of the study was constituted by 202 women diagnosed with breast cancer. The twelve scales that were administrated to the sample were: the Traumatic Life Events Questionnaire- TLEQ, the Impact of Events Scale- IES, the Post Traumatic Growth Inventory- PTGI, the PTSD Check List- Civilian versi ...
This research aims to study the psychological condition of breast cancer patients and survivors. More specifically, the main objectives of this study are: first of all, to record the prevalence of posttraumatic stress disorder and posttraumatic growth in women diagnosed with breast cancer; secondly, to explore their interrelation and finally to investigate the demographic, medical and psychosocial factors that contribute to the development of these phenomena. In order to achieve these goals, the study, quantitative and cross sectional in design was conducted in the public clinic for breast screening and clinical examination at “Helena Venizelou” hospital, from July 2012 to October 2013. The sample of the study was constituted by 202 women diagnosed with breast cancer. The twelve scales that were administrated to the sample were: the Traumatic Life Events Questionnaire- TLEQ, the Impact of Events Scale- IES, the Post Traumatic Growth Inventory- PTGI, the PTSD Check List- Civilian version- PCL-C, the Life Orientation Test Revised- LOT-R, the Adult Hope Scale- AHS, the Rumination Reflection Questionnaire- RRQ, the State Level Measure of Reflection and Brooding, the Social Constraints Scale- SCS, the Coping Orientation to Problems Experienced- Brief COPE, the Mental Health Inventory- MHI and the Attributional Style Questionnaire- ASQ. All questionnaires that were not officially validated in Greek, were translated, culturally adapted and validated in Greek. The theoretical framework of the research was a combination of the Andersen’s model (1994) and Lepore’s social-cognitive model (2001) of adaptation to cancer, the cognitive theory of coping with stress by Lazarus (1979), the existential model of Tedeschi & Calhoun (1996) for posttraumatic growth and Abramson’s model of attribution style (1978). The statistical analyses were conducted using the statistical package SPSS and included bivariate and multivariate analyses. The findings of this study suggested that the majority of the participants in this study experienced posttraumatic growth, while only a fragment of women with breast cancer reported posttraumatic stress disorder symptoms. Moreover, PTG and PTSD were found to be unrelated. The factors that were found to relate to the occurrence of PTSD were: pessimism, psychological distress, avoidance and intrusive thoughts, brooding rumination, pessimistic attribution style of negative events, social constraints on disclosure and various coping strategies, such as denial, avoidance, self- distraction, behavioral disengagement, self-blame, seeking emotional and practical help, active coping and venting. The parameters that were reported to be connected with the experience of PTG were: age, hope, optimism, reflective rumination, optimistic attribution style of positive events and a variety of coping strategies, such as positive reframing, acceptance, seeking emotional and practical support and active coping. The study findings are discussed in the context of development and implementation of supportive care methods, posttraumatic stress reduce interventions and counseling for the improvement of posttraumatic growth, of women diagnosed with breast cancer, by the mental health care professional.
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