Illness Perceptions in Women with Breast Cancer—a Systematic Literature Review

Abstract

Women with breast cancer respond to the illness and its medical management in their own personal way. Their coping behavior and self-management are determined by their views (cognitions) and feelings (emotions) about symptoms and illness: their illness perceptions. This paper reports the results of a systematic literature review of illness perceptions and breast cancer. In the 12 studies identified, published between 2012 and 2015, illness perceptions were found to be important concomitants of medical and behavioral outcomes: fear of recurrence, distress, quality of life, satisfaction with medical care, use of traditional healers, and risk perception. Intervention studies are called for where the effects are examined of replacing unhelpful illness perceptions by more constructive ones. Health care providers do well by incorporating illness perceptions in their care for women with breast cancer, as this is instrumental in improving patients’ quality of life.

Major obstetric hemorrhage: a follow-up survey on quality of life of women and their partners

“…In the hysterectomy group, the score dropped from 5.9 to 2.6. These results are consistent with results from other drawing studies in that the size of the drawn organs is reduced after the upsetting event has taken place [21,[29][30][31][32][33]. The intraclass correlation coefficient between G. S. and L. R. on Drawing 1 and Drawing 2 was 0.82 and 0.66, respectively.…”

“…A relatively new method to assess illness perceptions is through patients' drawings of affected organ(s) [21,[28][29][30][31][32][33]. It has the advantage of circumventing possible social desirability issues and provides a unique and value free illustration of a person's illness perceptions [31].…”

Illness perceptions and perceived stress in patients with advanced gastrointestinal cancer

“…However, data is limited in understanding which individual illness perceptions are mainly associated with stress. It is imperative for researchers to understand illness perceptions and their relationship to stress because of their impact on overall quality of life, including physical and mental health, and mortality . By identifying which illness perceptions are associated with stress, medical professionals can implement targeted interventions to focus on these specific areas and promote quality of life.…”

“…It is imperative for researchers to understand illness perceptions and their relationship to stress because of their impact on overall quality of life, including physical and mental health, and mortality. [16][17][18] By identifying which illness perceptions are associated with stress, medical professionals can implement targeted interventions to focus on these specific areas and promote quality of life. The current study aimed to describe how gastrointestinal cancer participants perceive their illness in terms of their perceptions about illness identity, consequences, cause, timeline, and cure or control, and how these perceptions influence ratings of perceived stress.…”

Living with the dilemma of the treatment for human epidermal growth factor receptor 2‐positive breast cancer and the risk of incident heart disease: A qualitative investigation of patients' experiences

“…According to the common‐sense model of self‐regulation of health and illness (Leventhal et al, ), the primary purpose of illness representations is to guide the individual in terms of deciding how to manage health threats. Thus, women's illness representations of breast cancer and the risk of heart disease likely affect health behaviours, such as symptom management and treatment adherence (Horne & Weinman, ), and are important for patients' ability to cope with and adjust to disease (Kaptein et al, ). Because of the ambiguity of treatment (“it can cure me, but also make me sick”), coping with HER2‐positive breast cancer may be particularly challenging.…”