Estimated read time: Less than a minute
This archived news story is available only for your personal, non-commercial use. Information in the story may be outdated or superseded by additional information. Reading or replaying the story in its archived form does not constitute a republication of the story.
PORTLAND, Ore., Jul 14, 2004 (United Press International via COMTEX) -- Women with breast cancer who receive unwanted support may have more trouble adjusting to the disease than those without any support, U.S. researchers said.
Researchers at the Kaiser Permanente Center for Health Research and Oregon Health & Science University in Portland surveyed 79 women with breast cancer and found the level of adjustment depended on how well the support patients received matched what they wanted.
The women agreed consistently about whether they did or did not want 17 of 40 items of support on the survey, researchers said.
On average, each woman received about 88 percent of the support she wanted but also about 8 percent of support they did not want, researchers said.
Women generally welcomed it when others asked if they wanted to go out, tried to help take their mind off cancer and tried to understand their situation. Some breast cancer patients, however, did not welcome unwanted explanations about the cancer or emotional over-involvement, researchers said.
Copyright 2004 by United Press International.
