Psychosocial Needs among Indonesian Women Diagnosed with Breast Cancer

Abstract

The aim of this study was to examine the importance of psychosocial needs and to identify the extent to which they are unmet among Indonesian women diagnosed with breast cancer. The descriptive with cross sectional study was used. The participants (n=132) were asked to complete the Psychosocial Needs Inventory (PNI), which consists of 7 categories with 48 items. The most important psychosocial needs was in ‘child care’ category, followed by ‘support network’, ‘interaction with health professionals’, ‘information’, ‘practical’, ‘identity’, and ‘emotional and spiritual’, respectively. Moreover, ‘practical needs’ was the most unmet psychosocial needs category, followed by childcare needs, emotional and spiritual needs, interaction with health professional needs, identity needs, support network needs, and information needs, respectively. The most unmet need item was ‘help with financial matters’ (42.4%). The high level of unmet needs across a wide range of psychosocial needs among cancer patients was related to low income in particular of the practical need. The findings provide useful information for nurses and health care providers to improvement the intervention to meet psychosocial needs among breast cancer patients.