The Psychosocial Intervention And Length Of Survival

Breast cancer affects one in every nine women in Britain, 45,000 women every year are diagnosed with it in some form or stage of development. Life style and cognitive interventions, i.e. counselling and psychotherapy can play an important part in how the patient deals with cancer in their lives and how they recover.

The study was composed of two groups. The control group received the usual breast cancer care. The experimental group received the usual care and some additional components including four teaching sessions completed within the first month and regular follow-up calls. Intervention

There is a large base of research at this point in time about cancer support services, and more specifically support groups. As I worked through the research I found that a majority of the research is very specified to a specific race, diagnosis, and emotional issue. I found it difficult to fin more general studies that only tested the most basic questions. I propose that more research is done to look at cancer support on a macro-scale.

When I spoke to the Doctor, she recommended that we have surgery, not knowing if they would diagnose the disease as advanced as my Mom. I was scared, not knowing what the outcome would be. I was just forty-nine years old, and I prepared myself for a fight and battle; I wasn’t going to let this disease win. Preparing for the treatments and keeping a positive attitude was my survivor tool. After surgery, my cancer was diagnosed as stage one and the tumor being very minuscule. The Doctor recommended for me to have 30 radiation treatments and no chemo ordered. Every day, I would wake up and say to myself “yes I am going to stay active and positive and beat this disease”. In Geneva where I live there is a facility called the Living Well Cancer Resource Center; I would drive past it daily not knowing that this facility would be part of my life for the next six months. I was recommended to check out the support cancer group meetings they held. I attended my first session by myself, and I also started my radiation treatments the same week. I never attended any type of support groups or addiction meetings, so I didn’t know what to expect. The meeting started off with a panel of ladies who are all cancer patients or cancer survivors. We each took our turn to introduce ourselves and talk about what cancer you been diagnosed with, and how long you been going for

**I attended a Tuesday afternoon grief support group at cancer services in January. I felt that this group was very beneficial because it still felt like the holidays. The group I attended was very full. The group consisted of people who were age 50 and up. There were probably around 20 individuals there. There were more females than males; however I was surprised at the amount of men who attended the group. Majority attended because of loss of spouse, there was one lady who was adjusting to the loss of her son. The group dynamic was very respectful, a lot of input, and genuine feelings of care towards each other. They appeared to have developed into their own little family. A lot of people expressed emotion, lots of tears this meeting.

The second article that I researched was titled Prolonged Exposure vs. Supportive Counseling for Sexual-Abuse Related PTSD in Adolescent Girls written by Edna B. Foa, Phd; Carmen P. McLean, PhD; Sandra Capaldi, PsyD; and David Rosenfield, PhD. The authors hypothesized that Prolonged Exposure would prove to be more beneficial in treating symptoms of PTSD and depression in adolescents when compared to supportive counseling

The previous section has shown that previous study had yielded contradictory results. To account for the inconsistent findings, we have to first understand the inner mechanisms of the effects of optimism on cancer survival rate. Salovey (2000) has proposed various potential casual pathways from dispositional optimism to cancer survival outcomes. One of the potential mediators of optimism and survival outcome might be immune system. In other words, optimism tends to enhance the immune system which in turn enhance cancer survival rate. Indeed, Ah (2007) examines the intimate connections among social support, optimism, and immune response. Ah hypothesized that optimism plays a mediating role for immune response and cancer outcome. 54 cancer patients participated in the study. They completed questionnaires regarding stress level, optimism, and satisfaction social support. Participants’ blood was assessed to measure the immune system (ex., white blood cell such as natural killer cell. The results showed that only optimism is associated with immune response and cancer prognosis, while perceived satisfaction of social support was not associated immune response.

Research on social support and quality of health has shown a significant relationship. Research on social support and health suggest that there is an association with increased life satisfaction. The general evidence on social support among breast cancer patients describes the impact of social networks

Illness uncertainty is a cause of a persistent and all-encompassing mental anxiety for people existing with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)/acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS), and basically changes how well they live and their coping ability with the disease. Social support or the lack thereof is a precursor of uncertainty in illness according to the Uncertainty in Illness theory. In 2013, a cross-sectional correlational study was conducted by Moosa, Mayam, Narges, and Fatemeh to examine uncertainty in 80 people living with HIV and how it related with social support in Iran. The outcome proved the theory and confirmed a high level of illness uncertainty in people living with HIV and a negative correlation amid apparent social support and illness uncertainty (Sajjadi, M., Rassouli, M., Bahri, N., & Mohammadipoor, F. 2015). In another study done by Deimling, Musil, Moore, Schneider & Wonghongul, on 2000 breast cancer survivors. The survivors

There are various social support approaches from which to draw from, for the purpose of this paper, I will adopt and briefly introduce the “three social support perspectives on social support research” outlined by Lakey and Cohen (Cohen, Underwood & Gottlieb, 2000, p. 29). The three perspectives on social support are the (a) stress and coping perspective, (b) the social constructionist perspective and (b) the relationship perspective (Lakey & Cohen, 2000). The first perspective suggests that social support acts as a buffer for the effect of stress (Cohen, Underwood & Gottlieb, 2000). The second proposes that our health is influenced by confidence in oneself, which is a consequent of social support (Cohen, Underwood & Gottlieb, 2000). The third perspective however focuses on the foundations of relationships built within social support systems and how the relationships are also considered to have an effect on health (Cohen, Underwood & Gottlieb, 2000).

The impact of cancer diagnosis is conversion many literatures suggest that patients are facing a wide range of difficulties in disclosing a cancer diagnosis with their family members or friends. Others suggest that disclosing and sharing information with significant ones has been linked to better psychological well-being and quality of life, greater levels of personal growth, and better social relationships. (Munro, Scott, King, & Grunfeld, 2015)

Women facing breast cancer, in every phase of the disease and at every phase of treatment, struggles with some amount of emotional distress (Holland, 2014), which can have an adverse affect on health and recovery (Godbout & Glaser, 2006). Research has evidence that immune functioning is improved by the perception of a degree of restraint over harmful stimuli (Boinon, Charles, Dauchy & Sultan, 2011; Chung, Lee, Hwang, & Park, 2013) and by the communication of positive or negative emotions (Jacob, Kreifelts, Brück, Erb, Hösl, & Wildgruber, 2012; Cohen, 2004). While these are good rationales to include counseling in “survivorship care plans or SPCs” (Rechis, Arvey, & Beckjord, 2013, p. 119), perchance, the principal reason is that psychological treatment can improve the client’s quality of life during a distressful time (Charles, 2000; Kirsch, 2012).

A qualitative study by Drageset et al (2015) described various women’s experiences following their first year after having primary breast cancer surgery. While some coping mechanisms can have a negative impact upon health, those who ‘take action’, for example, by physical activity experience a positive effect by improving health and overcoming the negative side effects associated with chemotherapy (Loprinzi & Cardinal, 2012). Physical activity is well-known for its positive effects on both health generally and emotions.

While the completion of treatment is excitedly anticipated, many cancer survivors would still be disturbed by the emotional and physical tribulation of their breast cancer trajectory (Surbone & Peccatori, 2006). This is because, the impact of cancer remains long even after treatment ended. Besides the common issues that accompany any cancer diagnosis, breast cancer survivors also have to deal with exclusive concerns such as decreased sexual function, relationship issues, fears about genetic inheritability of cancer and complications from this disease such as lymphedema (Hodgkinson, Butow, Fuchs, et al., 2007). Therefore, the completion of treatment does not equate to lesser need for health care. Long term health issues related to breast cancer survivors have thus emerged as a public health concern.

Bibliographic information: Richard C. Cardoso & Peter J. Gerngross & Theresa M. Hofstede & Donna M. Weber & Mark S. Chambers. Support Care Cancer (2014) 22:259–267 DOI 10.1007/s00520-013-1960-y.