Long‐term breast cancer survivors: confidentiality, disclosure, effects on work and insurance

Abstract

Health professionals and cancer survivors should engage in education about the potential positive and negative effects of disclosure, and advocacy against cancer-based work and insurance discrimination.

Employment and Quality of Survivorship among Women with Cancer: Domains not Captured by Quality of Life Instruments

“…Their need to remain wage earners may be complicated by the fact that cervical cancer is more common among minority women of low socio-economic status; the jobs available to them may have greater physical demands and fewer benefits such as paid medical leave 27. Women with gynecologic cancers have also been underrepresented in previous research on employment outcomes 1,2,4,19,26. The second reason for recruiting a large sample was to include a wide variety of jobs.…”

“…Even when cancer survivors work fewer hours than they did before diagnosis, their quality of life may be enhanced if people at work are a source of social support 18,19. On the other hand, lack of social support at work may detract from quality of life when coworkers react negatively or the supervisor stops recommending the cancer survivor for promotion or training to upgrade skills 19–21.…”

“…On the other hand, lack of social support at work may detract from quality of life when coworkers react negatively or the supervisor stops recommending the cancer survivor for promotion or training to upgrade skills 19–21. Such distressing experiences can reduce quality of life even when these individuals have not cut down on the amount of time they work.…”

“…Cancer survivors may view social relationships at work quite differently from social relationships outside of work, according to research on diagnosis disclosure. In a study of disease-free breast cancer survivors, 96.8% had told their friends about their illness, but only 51.2% and 41.1% had made this disclosure to coworkers and supervisors, respectively 19. Quality of life instruments blur potential distinctions between social support in the workplace and in the family or community, but social interactions in the workplace can be assessed using validated instruments for measuring cancer-specific social support, job strain, or workplace productivity (Table 1).…”

Workplace Support for Employees with Cancer

“…As compared with women never diagnosed with cancer, survivors were slightly more likely not to be working 3 years after diagnosis 12. However, in a cross-sectional mailed survey about the effect of illness on their vocational status, answered by 378 women who had survived breast cancer without recurrence for at least 2 years, more than 40% said that cancer had altered their priorities or their progress at work 45.…”