Anxiety, mental obsession with anxiety and emotional distress related to body image in cancer patient treated with mastectomy, and healthy woman volunteered for breast cosmetic surgery

Breast has an in important role in female body image, and related feminine identity, feminine feeling, sexual tendency, physical and sexual attractiveness, and nourishing maternal feeling to itself. Aim of this study was to comparison appearance anxiety, mental obsession with this anxiety, and emotional distress experiences in cancer patient treated with mastectomy, cancer patients volunteered for breast reconstruction and healthy woman volunteered for breast cosmetic surgery. For this purpose, in a casual comparative study, 144 participants have been chosen through convenient method and evaluated for body-image distortion. Analysis of variances showed that there are significant differences in anxiety about unattractive body parts, stress and distress caused by body defect between groups; but, there is no significant differences in mental obsession about unattractive body parts. Also, it showed that there are significant differences between cancer patients treated with mastectomy (CPTM) with breast reconstruction volunteers (BRV), and BRV with cosmetic surgery volunteers (CSV) and cancer patients with breast reconstruction (CPBR) in anxiety about unattractive body parts, and significant differences in BRV and CSV in mental obsession related to unattractive body parts. Comparing stress and distress due to body defect showed differences in CPTM with BRV and BRV with CPBR and CPBR. This study vindicates substructure of cancer patients treated with mastectomy and healthy people.