Since cancer and its treatment bring with it many psychosocial problems, it has led to the development of various supportive initiatives for patients and their families. It is extremely important that these supportive interventions are accepted and implemented as a part of cancer treatment in a holistic approach. Studies conducted with cancer patients have also reported that psychosocial interventions have positive effects on symptom management, coping with stress and improving quality of life.
In this regard, the following basic points can be taken into consideration when planning supportive interventions for the psychosocial problems of women with breast cancer:
Providing information
Lack of information is considered a source of anxiety and fear by many women with breast cancer. During the disease process, patients and families need to communicate with healthcare professionals. It would be useful to inform patients and their relatives about the issues they need at every stage and after the treatment process.
Women with breast cancer experience cognitive and emotional difficulties in the pre-treatment period. This period is described by patients as more stressful than the post-treatment period. In the pre-treatment period, patients have difficulty making treatment decisions. During this period, patients should be informed about treatment options such as surgical treatment, chemotherapy, radiotherapy, hormone therapy, patients should be given the opportunity to express their feelings about the treatment, and patients should be supported in their treatment decisions in line with their needs, values and possibilities. This information can help patients and families reduce feelings of insecurity and uncertainty. The purpose of providing information is not to provide all kinds of information to the patient and his family. The important thing in providing information is to convey the amount of information needed to the patient and family that reduces fear and anxiety.
Providing information should continue throughout the treatment process. Patients should be informed about nursing care related to surgical intervention, chemotherapy, radiotherapy, and hormone therapy. Providing information about the side effects of treatment can help reduce feelings of anxiety and uncertainty and increase coping with the disease. Hormonal and sexual problems, negative body image Information can be given about changes and general psychological reactions to cancer diagnosis. Providing women with information about preventive surgery, breast reconstruction, and prostheses may help reduce the distress associated with breast loss and correct distorted body image. Women's immediate family members should also be included in the information disclosure process. It is more beneficial for women to be informed together with their partners, especially regarding sexual problems.
After the treatments applied in the hospital, contact with breast cancer patients should be maintained through home care services. Communication with patients after hospital treatments makes them feel that they are not alone. During this period, the patient and other family members should be evaluated in terms of psychosocial needs through home visits and provided with necessary information. In a study conducted with women with breast cancer, it was stated that making home visits to patients instead of going to health care centers caused the patients to explain their problems more clearly and comfortably, and the relatives of the patients expressed their feelings more easily and asked the questions they were curious about during these visits.
Providing emotional support
Many women with breast cancer experience significant levels of anxiety and depression. During the disease process, women need to express their psychosocial problems and emotions. One of the important points to consider when helping patients is to try to understand the emotions they experience during this process. For this purpose, women can be given emotional support in the form of counseling.
Supportive interventions in the pre-treatment period should focus on creating a satisfactory environment to communicate with patients. Patients should be made to feel that they have the opportunity to communicate with them, express their feelings and ask questions whenever they want. Contact and communication with patients during the pre-treatment period can be effective in reducing fear and anxiety by increasing the sense of trust in patients. it could be. In this period, we aim to increase the hope of patients and Attempts can be made to cope with the side effects of treatment. During this period, patients' relatives also experience psychological problems such as fear of losing their patients, helplessness in the face of cancer, and inadequacy regarding their patients' suffering. In addition, disruption of family functions and changes in roles and responsibilities due to long and tiring treatments may also cause couples to experience marital problems. For this reason, patients and their relatives should be supported emotionally.
It has been determined that the main concern of women with breast cancer after treatment is fear and anxiety about the recurrence of the disease. During this period, women should be given the opportunity to express their fears and concerns in this regard. However, the existential and spiritual needs of women should not be neglected in this period. Spirituality, especially in our society, is an effective tool that provides relief during stressful times and is a coping method that is extremely effective in long-term survival. Therefore, the beliefs and values of women with breast cancer should be evaluated and patients should be supported in this direction. In addition, during this period, patients and their relatives should be encouraged to structure their future goals.
Providing social support
Many women with breast cancer need help from both their families and peers during the disease process. requires support from health professionals. Many women need to express their feelings about specific issues such as pain, body image problems, sexual problems, and social isolation. In this regard, social support networks can be expanded by encouraging patients and families to participate in self-help or support groups.
In the pre-treatment period, both patients and their families should be directed to participate in self-help and support groups. Social support includes contact with family members, friends, and other breast cancer patients. Establishing relationships with other breast cancer patients is cited as an important source of support. It is reported that sharing illness experiences with other patients, hearing that they feel the same feelings and feeling that they are not alone is extremely effective in helping patients cope with feelings such as helplessness and hopelessness.
Long-term hospital treatments can cause patients to withdraw from social life and cause disruptions in their interpersonal relationships. However, it has been reported in the literature that social support and supportive relationships have positive effects on the psychosocial adaptation and quality of life of women with breast cancer. Women with breast cancer considered having people in their lives who listened to their psychosocial problems and accepted and understood what they felt as a way to reduce the anxiety caused by the disease, and stated that it was very important to share the difficulties they experienced with the disease. The support groups he attended were found to be very meaningful for the patients. In these groups, importance is generally given to sharing emotions such as fear, anxiety and uncertainty, and to increasing hope and new interests. It has been stated that these social support groups are very useful, especially for women who have insufficient social support. Encouraging patients to participate in social support groups after hospital treatments may provide beneficial results.
As a result, women with breast cancer have a wide network of psychosocial problems and experience various psychosocial problems before, during and after treatment. . It is seen that these problems generally concentrate in areas such as family, marriage, sexuality, social relations and working life, and these problems negatively affect the daily life functions of the patients. In this regard, it would be useful for health professionals to evaluate the psychosocial needs of women with breast cancer with a holistic approach and to take initiatives focusing on providing information and providing emotional and social support.
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