Relationships between Family Support, Perceived Health Status, and Self-esteem in Korean Women with Breast Cancer

Abstract

Purpose:The study was to identify relationships between the family support, perceived health status and self esteem in Korean women with breast cancer. Methods: Data were collected by questionnaires from 214 women with breast cancer in inpatient and outpatient settings at three different university hospitals and one cancer hospital in B city, Korea. The instruments included Family Support Scale, Perceived Health Status Scale, and Self Esteem Scale. The collected data were analyzed using frequency, percentage, t-test, ANO-VA, Scheffe' s test, and Pearson' s correlation coefficients by SPSS WIN 15.0 program. Results: There were significant differences in the family support by age, education, and cost burden. There were significant differences in the perceived health status by education, occupation, economic status, pain, fatigue, and cancer insurance. There were significant differences in the self esteem by age, occupation, economic status, type of religion, pain, fatigue, and cancer insurance. Self-esteem was significantly correlated with family support and perceived health status. Conclusion: These results suggested that promoting perceived health status and enhancing family support would increase self-esteem effectively among Korean women with breast cancer.

The Mediating Effects of Self-Esteem and Optimism on the Relationship between Quality of Life and Depressive Symptoms of Breast Cancer Patients

“…In other words, breast cancer patients' quality of life does not appear to directly affect depressive symptoms, yet it does have significant influence on depressive symptoms through self-esteem as a mediator. It could be said that low quality of life decreases self-esteem and this low self-esteem intensifies depression, which would be consistent with the results of a study by Tae and Kim 31. Their study found that among breast cancer patients' disease-related characteristics the physical symptoms of pain and fatigue were associated with self-esteem.…”

“…It could be said that low quality of life decreases self-esteem and this low self-esteem intensifies depression, which would be consistent with the results of a study by Tae and Kim. 31 Their study found that among breast cancer patients' disease-related characteristics the physical symptoms of pain and fatigue were associated with self-esteem. It has also been reported that after mastectomy surgery, the sense of loss due to physical changes worsens body image and such damage to body image decreases quality of life.…”

“…Tae and Kim 31 identified relationships among family support, perceived health state, and self-esteem. The study concluded that the higher breast cancer patients perceived their health state, the higher their self-esteem.…”

Physical Wellbeing in Cervical and Breast Cancer Survivors: A Cross-sectional Study in Surabaya, Indonesia

“…Perceived health status in cancer patient is influenced by education level, economic status, type of social insurance, time of cancer diagnosis, status of cancer, metastasis (24). Health status, especially in BCS, is also associated with occupation, pain, and fatigue (25). From Table 1 we could see that generally BCS were better educated than CCS, but they had similar economic status which was probably because most of them were housewives so that they could not contribute to the family's income.…”

Effect of empowerment on the quality of life of the survivors of breast cancer: The moderating effect of self‐help group participation

“…In Korea's sociocultural context, social support has significantly helped survivors of breast cancer to recover their self‐esteem (Tae & Kim, ). Particularly, a strong maternal instinct for children acts as a great motivator to fight against the disease and therefore is an important factor in the empowerment of the survivors of breast cancer (Noh, ).…”