Mastectomy's social and psychological impact in patients operated of mamma cancer

Abstract

Mammas are one of the most important elements of women beauty, being diseases developed in them a factor of a high preoccupation for women. Apparition of a mamma cancer is an element of impact on the life quality of those patients, being a serious health problem even in developed countries. We studied the influence the diagnosis of mamma cancer had on the life quality of affected patients. We carried out a longitudinal, retrospective study of 23 patients attended for mamma cancer in the Communitarian Area of the policlinic “Dr. Carlos J. Finlay”, in Colon, during the period January 2000-December 2005. Different tests and inquiries were applied to evaluate the life quality, demographic data, etc. 65.3 % of the sample were housewives; 74 % of them attributed the disease some role in generating economic difficulties. When we evaluated their capacity of affronting this situation, we found that 60.9 % of them made it with some level of difficulty, which may be conditioned by the reason that the 78.2 % of them presented some post-surgery functional limitations. Chemotherapeutic treatment caused the biggest percent of disturbances in the patients´ social life. 47.9 % of them presented some level of psychological affectation, being depression, anxiety and disinterest in sexuality the most frequent of them. 43.5 % of the families became dysfunctional when a mamma cancer was diagnosed to one of their members, being affected the communitarian and social participation. It is a challenge for the medical sciences to establish a strategy to raise not only the life quantity, but also the life quality of these patients, to harmonically reinsert them in their social and familiar environment.