Relationships Between Emotional Processing Deficits With Post-Traumatic Stress Symptoms, And Adherence To Treatment In Patient With Breast Cancer: The Mediating Role Of Cancer Stigma

Negative emotions can have destructive effects on the treatment and recovery process of breast cancer patients. The present study aims to investigate relationships between emotional processing deficits with post-traumatic stress symptoms, and adherence to treatment in patient with breast cancer with the mediating role of cancer stigma.

in terms of the purpose, the present research is a part of basic research, and in terms of the method of data collection, it is a type of descriptive (correlation) studies. the statistical population of the present study included women aged 18 to 60 years with breast cancer who referred to the oncology clinic of kausar hospital in karaj, and 206 people were selected using the convenience sampling method. Participants answered the PTSD Checklist (Blevins et al., 2015), the Emotional Processing Scale (Baker et al., 2007), the Cancer Stigma Scale (Marlow & Wardley, 2014), and the Morisky et al. (2008) Treatment Adherence Questionnaire. The findings were analyzed through the advanced statistical method of structural equation modeling and using SPSS26 and SmartPLS 4 software.

The results of the model fit indices showed that in the current model, the value of SRMR was less than 0.08 and the numerical value of NFI was higher than 0.9. Therefore, it can be said that the assumed model of the current research has the necessary fit with the data. Structural Equation Modelling demonstrated that emotional processing deficits was positively associated with PTSD (β= .607; T=5.06; P<.001) and stigma (β= .896; T=48.63; P<.001). The results showed a non-significant relationship between emotional processing deficits and treatment adherence (β= -.313; T=1.83; P=.07), stigma with PTSD (β=-.225; T=1.68; P=.09), and stigma with adherence to treatment (β= .091; T=.526; P=.599). Multiple mediator modeling provided evidence that stigma partially mediated the relationship between emotional processing deficits and PTSD, and a full mediated relationship between emotional processing deficits and treatment adherence.

According to the results of this research, it is necessary not to be limited to medical treatments and by establishing counseling and psychotherapy centers in hospitals and oncology centers, in the process of improving emotional control, quality of life and stress of breast cancer patients, he took effective measures.