The ‘cause’ of my cancer, beliefs about cause among breast cancer patients and survivors who do and do not seek IO care

Objective We sought to describe survivors' beliefs about the cause of their breast cancer and to test the hypothesis that beliefs about cancer's cause are associated with treatment preferences in accordance with the common sense model of self‐regulation of health and illness. Methods Breas...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:	Psycho-oncology (Chichester, England) Vol. 26; no. 2; pp. 248 - 254
Main Authors:	Andersen, M. Robyn, Afdem, Kelsey, Hager, Shelly, Gaul, Marcia, Sweet, Erin, Standish, Leanna J.
Format:	Journal Article
Language:	English
Published:	England 01-02-2017
Subjects:	Adaptation, Psychological Aged Breast Neoplasms - psychology Breast Neoplasms - therapy Cancer Survivors - psychology Complementary Therapies Female Health Behavior Humans Middle Aged Risk Factors Self Concept Self Disclosure Social Support
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Summary:	Objective We sought to describe survivors' beliefs about the cause of their breast cancer and to test the hypothesis that beliefs about cancer's cause are associated with treatment preferences in accordance with the common sense model of self‐regulation of health and illness. Methods Breast cancer survivors (n = 552) participating in an observational study of cancer outcomes responded to an open‐ended question about the cause of their cancer. Of these, 245 women had sought treatment from complementary and alternative integrative oncology (IO) clinics, and 307 women did not. Results Women frequently described theories for their cancer's cause including genetics and family history (31%), stress and coping (31%), toxins and chemicals (27%), a variety of lifestyle and epidemiological risk factors, and randomness (17%). Self‐reported beliefs about cancer's cause differed among women in association with their use of IO. IO users were somewhat more likely to describe stress and poor coping as causes of their cancer and less likely to describe random chance as a cause of cancer (p < 0.05). Conclusions Beliefs about the cause of cancer change over time and may predict decisions to use specific treatment including complementary and alternative medicine and IO. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Bibliography:	ObjectType-Article-2 SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1 ObjectType-Undefined-1 ObjectType-Feature-3 content type line 23
ISSN:	1057-9249 1099-1611
DOI:	10.1002/pon.4028