The Relationship Between Perceived Stress and Coping Styles in Women Following Breast Cancer Surgery: A Cross-sectional Descriptive Study

Abstract

Purpose: The present study aimed to examine therelationship between perceived stress levels andcoping styles of women with breast cancer.Materials and Methods: This descriptive and crosssectional study was carried out with 132 women whounderwent breast cancer surgery at a training andresearch hospital in Turkey between March andOctober 2021. Data were collected face-to-facemethod before the discharge from the hospital via thePersonal Information Form, the Perceived StressScale, and the Brief Cope Inventory. Data wereanalyzed with descriptive statistics, independentsample t-test, One-Way ANOVA and Pearsoncorrelation analysis.Results: It was found that women who hadsecondary or above education, were housewives, had comorbidities, had undergone a total radicalmastectomy, and were supported by their childrenduring the disease had higher perceived stress levels(p<0.05). Women without social security had lowercoping styles (p<0.05). On the other hand, there wasa significant negative relationship between women'sperceived stress levels and their coping styles(p<0.05).Conclusions: The results emphasize the importanceof evaluating the perceived stress levels and copingstyles of women undergoing breast cancer surgeryby the multidisciplinary healthcare team andproviding counseling on this issue.