Breast cancer: The level of stress correlated with the type of surgery and the instructive level of patients

Abstract

Introduction Breast cancer is a severe pathology that once detected completely changes the patient’s perception of life. Objectives Evaluating the relationship that is established between the level of stress, the type of surgery applied and, the instructive level of women. Methods We selected 67 patients which were divided into 2 groups: group I(31) women who benefited from immediate reconstruction and group II(36) subjects who benefited from a late reconstruction. We split each group into two subgroups: women with secondary education and women with higher education. A socio-demographic questionnaire and the DASS-21 scale were applied. Results Comparing the two groups we noticed that stress level was more present in group I(38,7%) than in group II(25%). The differences were not statistically significant(p>0,05). In the subgroup of women with higher education in group I, high levels of stress were observed at 23,08% and, in the subgroup of patients with secondary education, 50% had high levels of stress. The differences were not statistically significant (p>0,05). We also analyzed the two subgroups of group II and we identified increased levels of stress in 20% of patients with higher education compared to those with secondary education where 26,93% had high levels of stress. Also, the differences were not statistically significant(p>0,05). A statistically significant difference(p<0,05) was found when we compared the level of stress between women with secondary education of group I and those of group II. Conclusions The study revealed that stress levels tend to be higher in women with immediate breast reconstruction and secondary education.

Keywords

• BREAST-CANCER
• surgery
• stress
• Education