Health Locus of Control in Indonesian Women with Breast Cancer: a Comparison with Healthy Women

Abstract

Asian Pac J Cancer Prev, 15 (21), 9191-9197 IntroductionBreast cancer is a serious health condition among women worldwide. In 2008, approximately 1.38 million new cases were diagnosed and approximately 458,000 deaths were recorded both in developed and developing countries (Ferlay et al., 2010). Receiving a breast cancer diagnosis is a life threatening negative event and potentially causes considerable psychological problems. Affected women are faced with multiple stressors throughout their illness trajectory, such as having a biopsy, awaiting diagnosis, having surgery, experiencing treatment side effects, anticipating the possibility of cancer metastasizing, coping with financial, family and social problems and facing the risk of recurrence and/or death. A previous comparative study found that women with breast cancer experienced more psychological problems than healthy women (Pan et al., 2013). The most prevalent psychological problems among women with breast cancer are anxiety and depression, with reported prevalences of 21.1% to 53% (Montazeri et al., 2001;Zabora et al., 2001;Osborne et al., 2003;So et al., 2010 AbstractThe aims of this study were to assess whether Indonesian women with breast cancer havea higher external health locus of control (HLC) than healthy women, and to explore the association between HLC and symptoms of anxiety and depression. In this study, 120 consecutive women with breast cancer were recruited at the outpatient surgical oncology clinic at the Hasan Sadikin Hospital in Bandung. One hundred and twenty two healthy women were recruited from the Bandung area as controls. A standard demographic form, Form C of the Multidimensional Health Locus of Control, as well as the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale and patients' medical records were used. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics, t-test, Pearson's correlation, MANOVA and multiple linear regressions. Women with breast cancer had higher scores on all external HLC subscales, i.e. chance, doctor, powerful others and God, and lower internal HLC compared to healthy women. High God LHC scores were associated with a high level of anxiety (β=0.21, p<0.05), whereas none of the HLC subscales were associated with depression. Our results suggest that women with breast cancer tend to have high external HLC, while healthy women tend to have high internal HLC. A strong belief in an external source of control, i.e. God, might be negatively associated with patient emotional adjustment. Further research is needed to give an insight into the direction of this association.

Forming a Stress Management and Health Promotion Program for Women Undergoing Chemotherapy for Breast Cancer

“…15 Thus, even though no cause-effect relationships have been established for the above variables, maintaining a good physical and psychological status after the onset of breast cancer should be considered as having complex and multifactorial causes.…”

Industrial Metropolis Vs Rural Area: The Patients With Cancer Locus Of Control

“…Locus of control is an important factor in the healing process. Thus, several works emphasize that the internal locus of control plays a positive role in the course of cancer, and is also a prerequisite for high rates of recovery (Ghislain et al, 2016); (Iskandarsyah et al, 2014); (Rautalin et al, 2018 2014) found that women with breast cancer had a higher level of external locus of control and lower rates of internal control compared to healthy women.…”

Comparison of resilience and quality of life between adolescent blood cancer survivors and those with congenital heart disease: a cross sectional study.

“…The researchers reported that the people who have strong internal health locus of control (the belief that they can control their health condition) was likely to learn self-management [ 14 ] and showed high QOL [ 15 ], self-esteem, and life satisfaction [ 16 ]. The people having cancer showed lower scores of internal health locus of control than those of healthy people [ 17 ] because they continuously experienced a fear of recurrence [ 18 ]. However the sure way to prevent cancer recurrence is not yet known.…”

“…However the sure way to prevent cancer recurrence is not yet known. On the other hand, the scores of internal health locus of control in people with heart disease were higher than those in healthy people at comparing the two studies using the same scale for investigating internal health locus of control [ 17 , 19 ]. These mean that psychological problems can be different in the people with cancer and heart disease, even though both diseases were considered as chronic disease.…”