Mental Adjustment to Cancer and its Effect on the Quality of Life of Women with Breast Cancer

Breast cancer has been recognized as the most common malignancy in women during the last 10-15 years. Quality of life is the result of several physical and psychosocial effects. The result of this study was conducted to investigate the strategies of mental adjustment to cancer and its impact on the quality of life of breast cancer patients.

This descriptive-correlational study was conducted on 240 breast cancer patients using simple random sampling who were referred in Shahid Ramezanzadeh Radiotherapy Center, Yazd, Iran, from April to October 2021. Data collection tools were standard quality of life questionnaires (EORTC QLQ-C30) and Mini-Comparison of Mental Adaptation to Cancer (Mini-MAC). Data were analyzed using t-test, correlation and regression in SPSS version 16 software.

The mean age of patients was 44.77(±11.00) years. There was a significant and negative correlation between quality of life and Helplessness hopelessness (r= -.795, p<0.001) and anxious preoccupation (r= -.705, p<0.001). Quality of life was significantly and positively correlated with fighting spirit (r= .368, p<0.001) and cognitive avoidance (r= .364, p<0.001) and Fatefulness(r= .155, p<0.05). In general, cancer coping strategies explained 59% of the quality of life variation in breast cancer patients.

In order to improve the quality of life of patients, it is necessary to teach them adaptive strategies to adjust with cancer, such as fighting spirit and cognitive avoidance.