Adaptation of couples living with a high risk of breast/ovarian cancer and the association with risk-reducing surgery

Abstract

Women who carry BRCA1/2 mutations have a significantly elevated risk for breast and ovarian cancer. The positive test result and subsequent decisions about risk reducing behaviors can evoke distress, anxiety and worry. Psychological adaptation, or the process of coming to terms with the implications of a health threat, is an understudied construct in BRCA1/2 carriers. Little is known about adaptation and how it relates to other aspects of living at high risk for cancer. Even less is understood about adaptation among partners of BRCA1/2 carriers, and its relationship to adaptation in high risk individuals. Women at increased risk of breast/ovarian cancer (N = 103) and a subset of partners (N = 39) completed questionnaires that assessed risk management decisions (e.g. screening, risk-reducing surgery), dyadic coping, and the outcome of psychological adaptation. Women who had undergone risk-reducing mastectomy (RRM) had significantly higher levels of adaptation than those who had not (t = 5.5, p < 0.001, d = 1.10). Partners of women who had undergone RRM also had higher levels of adaptation than partners of women who had not undergone RRM (t = 3.7, p = 0.01, d = 0.96), though this association was not statistically significant when controlling for carriers' adaptation. Undergoing risk-reducing oophorectomy was not associated with adaptation for BRCA1/2 carriers or their partners. Risk-reducing mastectomy is a significant event in the process of adapting to life at risk for hereditary cancer. Further, adaptation among partners is highly related to adaptation in carriers. These results aid in the understanding of the experience of couples living with cancer risk and the medical decisions related to adaptation.

Escala de Adaptación Psicológica al Asesoramiento Genético (EAP-AG): validación de una versión en español para padres

“…Se trata de la primera adaptación lingüística que se realiza del instrumento. Los estudios anteriores que utilizaron la PAS (Biesecker et al, 2013) lo hicieron con la escala en su idioma original inglés, por tratarse de estudios realizados, mayormente, en Estados Unidos, o Australia y Nueva Zelanda (Berrios et al, 2019;Edwards et al, 2018;Griesener et al, 2019;Shapira et al, 2018;Lamb et al, 2016;Peay et al, 2013Peay et al, , 2014Turriff, Levy, & Biesecker, 2015;Truitt et al, 2012;Yanes et al, 2017).…”

“…Se ha realizado una búsqueda de antecedentes donde fue empleada la PAS (Biesecker et al, 2013) y surgen algunas consideraciones importantes (Berrios, Chakravarti, & Biesecker, 2019;Edwards et al, 2018;Griesemer et al, 2019;Kortlever et al, 2019;Lamb et al, 2016;Park et al, 2016;Peay, Rosenstein, & Biesecker, 2013;Peay, Rosenstein, & Biesecker, 2014;Peay et al, 2016;Shapira et al, 2018;Truitt, Biesecker, Capone, Bailey, & Erby, 2012;Turiff, Levy, & Biesecker, 2015;Yanes, Humphreys, McInerney-Leo, & Biesecker, 2016;Yopp et al, 2019). Hasta el momento, no se han encontrado estudios en que se haya utilizado la PAS (Biesecker et al, 2013) y se haya realizado un estudio acabado de sus propiedades psicométricas.…”

Family Adjustment to Hereditary Cancer Syndromes: A Systematic Review

“…The distribution of MMAT-v2018 scores was generally high across study designs, with 22 out of 30 (73.3%) studies meeting 100% of quality criteria and eight records having 80% of quality criteria met (see Supplementary Table S1). All qualitative studies (n = 5) [14,56,[59][60][61] obtained the highest possible score, which was also achieved in 3 out of 7 (42.9%) quantitative non-randomized studies [62][63][64] and 13 out of 17 (76.5%) records adopting a quantitative descriptive method [55,[65][66][67][68][69][70][71][72][73][74][75][76]. One mixed-method study of the two included in this review (50%) also met 100% of the quality criteria [77].…”

“…Eleven studies focused specifically on the adjustment process to test results regarding couples [59,61,64,[66][67][68][69]71,72,82,83]. Cross-over effects in the couple were observed.…”

Psychometric Testing of The Chinese Version of The Family Crisis Oriented Personal Evaluation Scales In Families of Patients With Dementia

“…Coping of families refers to speci c efforts that an individual family member or the family functioning as a whole makes to reduce the stress and burden, such as managing the demand on the family system or utilizing coping resources [7]. Coping ability is important in decreasing such stress and promoting family adaptation [8,9]. A tool to identify the coping abilities of families of patients with dementia is necessary to identify vulnerable families with insu cient coping abilities and the coping abilities which they lack, which helps develop interventions to enhance the coping ability of these families.…”