Coping strategy in differentianting levels of post-traumatic growth on housewives living with breast cancer

Abstract

The psychological state of a person will be affected when they are diagnosed with cancer and this condition will actually worsen the physical condition of the patient. However, many breast cancer sufferers are able to face this stressful situation positively, and they experience post-traumatic growth. They did a series of coping strategy when they had cancer and some of these strategies were able to influence their post-traumatic growth. The current study aims to investigate and to understand how different coping strategy can affect the level of post-traumatic growth of housewives with cancer. This study used a descriptive-explorative qualitative approach with eight women with breast cancer completed surveys using the Posttraumatic Growth Inventory (Tedeschi& Calhoun). The coping strategy was obtained using an interview. The results of the present study indicate that sufferers performed different coping strategies and this affects their level of post-traumatic growth. Respondents with high post-traumatic growth exercise a problem-focused coping i.e. positive reappraisal and emotion-focused coping strategy, i.e. seeking social support when they first learned about the condition of their disease. Respondents who had low post-traumatic growth, on the other hand, did emotional-focused coping strategies, which isavoidance and distancing when they first learned about the condition of their illness. This study also found several factors that influence patients’ strategy. There are differences in the Coping pattern Strategy used by housewives with breast cancer in terms of differences in levels of post-traumatic growth it has. The pattern of coping strategy that is carried out for the first time by housewives with breast cancer could lead themto be in a variety of post-traumatic growth conditions.

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