Abstract
Women with cancer utilize a variety of coping strategies to meet their emotional and informational support needs. Different cancer diagnoses are likely to influence patients’ coping and providers’ effectiveness in meeting their needs, but the relationship among coping dimensions and type of diagnosis are largely unknown. This study explored the relationship among diagnosis with ovarian or breast cancer, coping strategies, and perceived importance of nurses and physicians’ informational and emotional support. Methods included a survey with women who were diagnosed with either breast or ovarian cancer. Results indicated differences between women with breast cancer compared to those with ovarian cancer in coping strategies and perceived importance of support from health care providers. Coping strategies were related to differences in perceived importance of health care providers support.These findings highlight the importance of meeting women’s cancer-related support needs in cancer care settings by considering their coping style and diagnosis.
Highlights
Women with cancer utilize a variety of coping strategies to meet their emotional and informational support needs
This study investigated the relationship amongproblem-focused and emotional approachcoping strategies, being diagnosed with ovarian or with breast cancer, and the importance participants attributed to physicians and nurses’ information and emotional support
Women diagnosed withbreast cancerreported higher levels of utilization of problem-focused coping strategies than did women with ovarian cancer diagnoses. Both coping strategies and type of diagnosis were associated with the importance that patients attributed to information and emotional support from health care providers
Summary
Women with cancer utilize a variety of coping strategies to meet their emotional and informational support needs. Results indicated differences between women with breast cancer compared to those with ovarian cancer in coping strategies and perceived importance of support from health care providers. Women with ovarian cancer have fewerresources and are usually facing more severe prognoses (Howell, Fitch, & Deane, 2003) These differences in typical illness trajectories and availability of information and emotional support are likely to influence how women with these two types of cancer cope with their illness and their support needs in health care contexts. People use a wide range of coping efforts, and these efforts are linked to psychosocial adaptation both directly and indirectly.(For a review, see Livneh, 2000.) Whereas both problem-solving and emotion-focused coping can be adaptive, studies typically identified emotion-focused copingas indicative of maladjustment and negative results (e.g., Kohn, 1996). RQ1: What are the differences in coping strategies between women with breast cancerand women with ovarian cancer?
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