Spirituality And Mental Adjustment As Coping Strategies Among Women With Breast Cancer

Spirituality and mental adjustment have been widely adopted as coping strategies among women with breast cancer. Little information was available locally on the use of spirituality and mental adjustment as coping mechanisms to fight breast cancer. A cross-sectional study was conducted to assess spirituality and mental adjustment as coping strategies and its association with socio demographic data on 216 women with breast cancer. The Functional Assessment of Chronic Illness Therapy-Spiritual Well-Being (FACIT-Sp) and Mental Adjustment to Cancer (MAC) Scales were used to assess spirituality and mental adjustment. Negative correlation between spiritual well-being and helplessness/hopelessness (r=-0.690; p=0.000), anxious preoccupation (r=-0.277; p=0.000) and avoidance (r=-0.235; p=0.000) and positive correlation between spiritual well-being and fighting spirit (r=0.668; p=0.000) were identified. Socio-demographic factors such as race (p=0.000), religion (p=0.000), academic qualification (p=0.004) and type of surgery (p=0.016) revealed significant relationship with spiritual well-being. Fighting spirit, hopelessness/helplessness and anxious preoccupation also yielded significant relationship with race (p<0.0001), religion (p=0.001) and academic qualification (p=0.024). Helplessness/hopelessness had a significant relationship with stage of disease (p=0.017) and type of surgery (p=0.011). Meanwhile, fatalistic and avoidance showed a strong relationship with age (p=0.014, r=0.167), occupation (p=0.001) and income (p=0.006), race (p=0.007) and academic qualification (p=0.005). It is thus, concluded that spirituality and mental adjustment are two coping strategies widely adopted by Malaysian women after a breast cancer diagnosis and throughout their breast cancer journey. Women with breast cancer, therefore, should be treated holistically rather than just the disease itself.

Correlation between Mental Adjustment to Cancer and Anxiety / 종양간호학회지

PURPOSE: This study was to identify the relationship between mental adjustment to cancer and anxiety. METHOD: This study used a cross-sectional descriptive design. A total of 124 ambulatory cancer patients completed the Mental Adjustment to Cancer (MAC) scale and Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS). Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics, t-test, ANOVA and Pearson correlation. RESULTS: There was a significantly negative correlation between anxiety and fighting spirit which was adaptive adjustment to cancer (r=-0.29, p<0.001). However, anxiety had significantly positive correlation with helplessness/hopelessness (r=0.38, p<0.001), anxious preoccupation (r=0.55, p<0.001), and fatalism (r=0.22, p<0.05) to cancer. CONCLUSION: Cancer patients' mental adjustment is correlated with the degree of the psychosocial distress. Anxious preoccupation and helplessness/hopelessness are the most maladaptive adjustments whereas fighting spirit is one of the most adaptive adjustment to cancer.

Mini-mac - escala de ajustamento mental para o câncer: estrutura fatorial / Mini-mac - escala de ajuste mental para el cáncer: estructura factorial / Mini-mac - the mental adjustment to cancer scale: factorial structure

Trata-se de estudo da estrutura fatorial da escala Mini-MAC, que mede o ajustamento mental dos pacientes ao câncer. Após análise semântica, a escala foi aplicada em 283 pacientes de um hospital universitário com diferentes tipos e estádios da doença que possuíam idade média de 54 anos. Confirmada a fatorabilidade da amostra (KMO = 0,88), os dados foram submetidos à análise dos componentes principais, rotação oblíqua, dada a interdependência entre os fatores. Foram mantidos sete fatores com valores próprios maiores que 1,0. Apenas dois fatores possuíam índices de fidedignidade satisfatórios ("Preocupação Ansiógena" com "Alpha de Cronbach" de 0,87 e "Desamparo/Desesperança" com "Alpha" de 0,74), reunindo 13 itens com cargas fatoriais maiores ou iguais a 0,40 e explicavam 30% da variância total. Os resultados revelaram a boa qualidade psicométrica do instrumento. As diferenças entre a estrutura fatorial do instrumento original e a deste estudo podem ser atribuídas às diferenças culturais e educacionais entre as amostras.

The factorial validation of the Mini MAC - The Mental Adjustment to Cancer Scale, that measures mental adjustment to cancer, is investigated. After semantic validation, the scale was applied to a sample of 283 patients, average age 54 years old, suffering from cancer of different types and in various stages of the disease, and attended to at a university hospital. The factorability of the sample was appropriate (The Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin was 0.88); data were submitted to principal components analysis, oblique rotation, due to interdependence of factors. Seven factors attained eigenvalue greater than 1.0. Two factors showed good reliability ("Anxious Preoccupation" with Cronbach's Alpha = 0.87 and "Helpless/Hopeless" with Cronbach's Alpha = 0.74), with 13 items with loadings 0.40 or more, which explained 30% of total variance. Results suggested good psychometric quality. Difference between the factor structure of the original scale and that in current study explains the cultural and educational differences among samples.

The effect of persortality on the mental adjustment of breast cancer patients during operation / 中国癌症杂志

Purpose: To study the effect of personality on the mental adjustment of breast cancer patients during operation. Methods: Forty three breast cancer patients were examined by the Eysenck Personality Questionnaire (EPQ) for their personality before operation, and by the Mental Adjustment to Cancer Scale ( MAC) for their mental adjustment reaction before and after operation. Results: ANOVA repeated analysis revealed that the patients characterized by high Psychoticism showed higher scores on Fatalism, and the patients characterized by low Lie showed higher Hopelessness during operation. Conclusions: In the treatment of breast cancer patients, it is necessary to give appropriate psychological treatment according to the patients's individual characteristics.