1. Psychological effects of a cosmetic education programme in patients with breast cancer.
- Author
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Park, H.Y., Kim, J.H., Choi, S., Kang, E., Oh, S., Kim, J.Y., and Kim, S.W.
- Subjects
BREAST tumors ,ACADEMIC medical centers ,ADAPTABILITY (Personality) ,PSYCHOLOGICAL adaptation ,AESTHETICS ,STATISTICAL correlation ,COSMETICS ,FISHER exact test ,PATIENT education ,QUALITY of life ,QUESTIONNAIRES ,SELF-esteem testing ,STATISTICS ,T-test (Statistics) ,DATA analysis ,DATA analysis software ,DESCRIPTIVE statistics ,CANCER & psychology - Abstract
Treatments for breast cancer often include interventions related to psychosocial issues such as negative body image, loss of femininity, and low self-esteem. We identified the psychological effects of a cosmetics education programme in patients with breast cancer. Cosmetic programme is a specific care designed to help patients handle appearance-related side effects. Thirty-one women with breast cancer at a university hospital in South Korea who received a cosmetics education programme were compared with 29 subjects in a control group who received the treatment as usual. Psychological factors including distress, self-esteem, and sexual functioning were assessed three times (before and after the programme, and at the 1-month follow-up). After the programme, patients in the treatment group were significantly less likely than those in the control group to rely on distress ( P = 0.038) and avoidance coping ( P < 0.001) but not on self-esteem. The mean scores in the treatment group for sexual functioning were higher than those in the control group after the treatment. Our results suggest the potential usefulness of a brief cosmetics education programme for reducing distress and reliance on negative coping strategies. Implementing a cosmetics programme for patients with breast cancer may encourage patients to control negative psychological factors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2015
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