Coping strategies and post-traumatic growth in women and without breast cancer

Abstract

Post-Traumatic Growth (PTG now on) can be understood as the positive change that an individual experiences as a result of a traumatic event. Breast cancer can be considered as a traumatic situation due both to the diagnosis impact and to the administered treatments. However, regardless of suffering a serious illness, all people face traumatic situations in their lives through which they can obtain –or not- certain benefits and/or PTG. Likewise, the experimented growth derived from these events could be promoted or hindered by the use of different coping strategies (CS from this point on). In this sense, the objectives of this study are: 1) to examine whether there are statistically significant differences in the levels of PTG and the CS used among women with and without breast cancer, 2) to explore the existence of statistically significant correlations between the used CS and the levels of PTG; and 3) to analyze the prospective explanatory and predictive capacity of the use of various CS and the development of PTG, controlling for the possible effect of age and the disease. The sample was comprised of 110 women, 45 of them with breast cancer (40.9%) and 55 without cancer (59.1%). Two instruments were administered: The Post-Traumatic Growth Inventory (PTGI) (Tedeschi and Calhoum, 1996) and the Spanish version of the Coping Strategies inventory (Cano et al, 2007). The results reported that both groups differed in the use of CS emotional expression; that PTG correlates with different CS, being social support and problems solving those CS that explain and predict the PTG, regardless of age and illness. We conclude that both CS should be included in interventions aimed at promoting PTG in women who have suffered a traumatic experience, being this clinic or not.

Keywords

• crecimiento postraumático
• estrategias de afrontamiento
• resolución de problemas
• apoyo social
• mujeres
• cáncer de mama