The long-term psychosocial impact of breast cancer on young survivors and their partners

Abstract

Long-term psychosocial consequences of breast cancer are increasingly more important to study as survivors are living longer. However, the survivors do not experience cancer alone; their significant others often suffer just as much if not more than the survivors themselves. In this dissertation, we explore some long-term consequences of cancer within the context of the Social Cognitive Processing Theory (SCPT). SCPT proposes that an individual must be able to discuss their feelings in order to cognitively process a traumatic event, such as cancer. If discussions are hindered, in particular by a significant other, then one will be unable to work through his/her concerns, leading to poor psychological outcomes, such as depression and fear of recurrence. The purpose of this dissertation is to use SCPT to identify causal mechanisms of depressive symptoms and fear of recurrence using a large sample of young breast cancer survivors and their partners. For one paper, we also included a large set of older participants for comparison. This dissertation is divided into three distinct articles. Each article tests long-term consequences of breast cancer and its treatment on breast cancer survivors and their partners using SCPT to explain relationships. First we examine the hypothesized predictors of younger breast cancer survivors’ depressive symptoms including the partner variable of depressive symptoms. The second article addresses the partners by predicting their depressive symptoms using SCPT. The third and final article seeks to identify the relationship of predictors and FOR on both survivors and their partners again using SCPT. For survivors, structural equation modeling analyses found significant direct and indirect paths between depressive symptoms and theoretical variables, including social constraints (stb=.266, p<.001) and intrusive thoughts (stb=.453, p<.001). In partners, cognitive processing variables (intrusive thoughts and cognitive avoidance) mediated the relationship between social constraints and depressive symptoms (F(5,498)= 19.385, R2=.163, p<.001). And finally, cognitive processing mediated the relationship between social constraints and fear of recurrence both for survivors [F(3,213)= 47.541, R2=.401, p<.001] and partners [F(3,215)= 27.917, R2=.280, p<.001). The evidence from these studies supports the use of SCPT in predicting depressive symptoms and fear of recurrence in both long-term survivors and partners.