A Survey of social support and psychosocial compliance in patients with breast cancer

Abstract

Because getting a cancer diagnosis causes the patient to try to cope with physical problems on the one hand and uncertainty about the future on the other [3,4]. Moreover, getting a cancer diagnosis causes the patients to experience feelings such as fear, hopelessness, helplessness, guilt, and while the individual becomes psychologically aggravated, getting a breast cancer diagnosis is considered as an additional stressor that seriously shakes the individual psychosocially [4-6]. Because the individual who is diagnosed with breast cancer is faced with a threat to an organ that symbolized by femininity, aesthetics, motherhood and sexuality. For this reason, women often perceive loss of attraction, fertility, sexuality and femininity [5].