Medical therapeutic itineraries of women with breast cancer diagnosis affiliated to the People's Health Insurance in San Luis Potosí, central Mexico

Abstract

This study aims to describe the medical itineraries followed by breast cancer women affiliated to the People's Health Insurance in San Luis Potosí, central Mexico. We used an ethnographic approach based on oral histories of 12 women diagnosed with breast cancer in the year prior to the first meeting. Two face-to-face sessions per participant lasting 60 minutes each were conducted followed by a telephone interview. Content and diachronic analyses were used. Three main itineraries were identified: (1) diagnostic process, (2) final diagnosis to treatment, and (3) cancer control and relapse. Findings suggested that infrastructure and human resources to adequately screen and timely diagnose breast cancer were scant and insufficiently trained, respectively. Deferral of medical assessment was related with lack of information about breast cancer consequences, with women being afraid of a positive result, and with economic constraints. The current screening program needs to be redesigned to prevent diagnostic delays, as these seem to explain the high frequency of advanced stages reported at the time of diagnosis.

Felt Needs for Rehabilitation After Breast Cancer Treatment in Mexico

“…Various themes emerged that underlie factors associated with the lack of rehabilitation care for most women such as the absence of free-or low-cost public facilities that provide such services, as previously observed [18].…”

“…It is worth noting that while the public health services in SLP have insuicient human resources and infrastructure to rehabilitate "C women after surgery, the health authorities fail to even provide women with relevant information concerning the beneits of motility and physical exercise after surgery and during chemo and radiotherapy instead, women have to rely upon the support and guidance of a NGO for that purpose [18]. Governmental authorities must be aware of this and as a result take a more active role rehabilitating these women.…”

“…This could be due to various reasons, including the fact that women are not aware of the existence and relevance of physical therapy after surgery [17], or because availability and access to rehabilitation services is constrained [18,19].…”

Experiencias del cuidado familiar durante el cáncer de mama: la perspectiva de los cuidadores

“…This work shows the relevance of detecting breast cancer in early stages, which favors women's survival and provides greater hope and certainty to caregivers, and consequently facilitates care (22) . However, the process to obtain an accurate diagnosis and timely treatment follows a long path, as reported in another study also conducted in Mexico (23) .…”

A painful journey to antivenom: The therapeutic itinerary of snakebite patients in the Brazilian Amazon (The QUALISnake Study)

“…Narratives and statements for the understanding of TIs have been recorded mainly in urban populations with chronic or non-transmissible conditions [31][32][33][34][35][36][37], for HIV [38,39] and for a few neglected diseases such as tuberculosis [40,41], malaria [42,43] and Buruli ulcer [44,45]. This study describes the TIs of snakebite victims, and includes the difficulties and unforeseen circumstances that victims had to bear in order to receive antivenom treatment.…”