THE CONNECTION BETWEEN QUALITY AND SELF-ESTEEM IN PATIENTS WITH BREAST CANCER

Abstract

Greater insight into patient's quality of life can help researchers and clinicians to use quality of life as a measure for treatment outcomes. Breast cancer is a stressful and causes extremely difficult physical, emotional and social challenges. In addition to concerns about whether breast cancer will metastaize and the impact of treatment side effects on daily life, breast cancer patients are more likely to experience depression than patients with other types of cancer. Surgery, chemotherapy, radiation therapy, and other forms of treatment can cause changes in a patient's physical apperance, leading to anxiety, pain, depression, and low self-esteem. Self-esteem is determined by positive or negative feelings as well assatisfaction and confidence in oneself. It also refers to the belief that one is capable of coping with life's challenges and is worthy of happiness. One study found that self-esteem is a key factor in the growth and return to normal life in breast cancer patients. Low self-esteem has been found to be strongly associated with depression and other psychological problems. The diagnosis and treatment of breast cancer encompasses a critical period in a woman's life during which she suffers from anxiety of the cancer spreading to other parts of the body, uncertainty about the future, anxiety and depression, anger, frustration, pain, changes in selfimage, fear of losing femininity and changed confidence. Advances in the diagnosis and treatment of breast cancer, pathological differences between this disease and other chronic diseases, changes in self-esteem, the development of negative emotions, the experience of everyday problems at work and in interpersonal relationships, and the development of anxiety can lead to changes in the quality of life of patients with breast cancer. The objective of this study is to explain the connection between the quality of life and selfesteem of breast cancer patients.