Although clinicians may not be able to prevent some of the chronic or late medical effects of cancer, they have a vital role in mitigating the negative emotional and behavioral sequelae. Recognizing and treating effectively those who manifest symptoms of anxiety or depression will reduce the human cost of cancer.

Research was conducted to develop valid and reliable scales to test the Health Belief Model (HBM). The dependent variable chosen for scale development was frequency of breast self-examination. Independent variables were constructs related to the HBM: susceptibility, seriousness, benefits, barriers, and health motivation. Analyses for construct validity and theory testing included factor analysis and multiple regression. Chronbach Alpha and Pearson r were used to compute reliabilities. Scales that were judged valid and reliable were susceptibility, seriousness, benefits, barriers, and health motivation.

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Background Younger survivors (YS) of breast cancer often report more survivorship symptoms such as fatigue, depression, sexual difficulty, and cognitive problems than older survivors (OS). We sought to determine the effect of breast cancer and age at diagnosis on Quality of Life (QoL) by comparing 3 groups: 1) YS diagnosed at age 45 or before, 2) OS diagnosed between 55 and 70, and, 3) for the YS, age-matched controls (AC) of women not diagnosed with breast cancer. Methods Using a large Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group (ECOG) data base, we recruited 505 YS who were ages 45 or younger when diagnosed and 622 OS diagnosed at 55 to 70. YS, OS, and AC were compared on physical, psychological, social, spiritual, and overall QoL variables. Results Compared to both AC and to OS, YS reported more depressive symptoms (p=.005) and fatigue (p<.001), poorer self-reported attention function (p<.001), and poorer sexual function (p<.001) than either comparison group. However, YS also reported a greater sense of personal growth (p<.001) and perceived less social constraint (p<.001) from their partner than AC. Conclusions YS reported worse functioning than AC relative to depression, fatigue, attention, sexual function, and spirituality. Perhaps even more important, YS fared worse than both AC and OS on body image, anxiety, sleep, marital satisfaction, and fear of recurrence, indicating that YS are at greater risk for long term QoL problems than survivors diagnosed at a later age.