Psychological resilience and health-related quality of life in Swedish women with newly diagnosed breast cancer

Abstract

Purpose Psychological resilience appears to be an important influencing factor in various aspects of health-related quality of life (HRQoL) in a context of adversity, e.g., being informed of a cancer diagnosis. The purpose was to investigate psychological resilience and health-related quality of life in Swedish women with newly diagnosed breast cancer in relation to demographic and clinicopathological characteristics.Methods A population-based cross-sectional study was conducted including 517 women with breast cancer in the South Swedish Health Care Region. Participants were enrolled at the time of consultation for the diagnosis. Psychological resilience was assessed with the Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale 25 (CD-RISC25), and HRQoL was assessed with the Short Form Health Survey. The participants responded to questions regarding demographic variables. Clinicopathological data were collected from the Swedish National Quality Register for Breast Cancer.Results The mean score for psychological resilience was 70.6, identifying 15% of included patients with a score lower than 58 (-1 standard deviation). The study cohort had significantly lower mean scores for several aspects of HRQoL compared with Swedish normative data. Multiple regression analyses demonstrated that psychological resilience was significantly associated with all domains of HRQoL after adjustment for demographic and clinicopathological factors.Conclusions Higher levels of psychological resilience were significantly related to higher levels of HRQoL in Swedish women with newly diagnosed breast cancer and no modifying factor was identified. The assessment of psychological resilience at the time of breast cancer diagnosis might allow for early identification of women in need of more intense psychosocial support. Future studies are needed to identify a clinically relevant threshold of the CD-RISC25.

The mediator role of resilience between psychological predictors and health-related quality of life in breast cancer survivors: a cross-sectional study

“…This reflects the fact that positive psychological states can be shown in different aspects, and are positively correlated with each other [23]. Consistent with previous reports, it was found that confrontation, perceived social support, and resilience were positively associated with HRQoL, which indicated that a sound psychological state was beneficial to HRQoL improvement [8][9][10][11][12]. Although avoidance is a negative coping style, it was still helpful in protecting the BCSs' psychological defense system, which allowed more time for them to recover from their distress [24].…”

“…Apart from the above-mentioned variables reported by systematic reviews, resilience and perceived social support are also factors related to HRQoL [11,12], along with higher resilience and perceived social support were associated with better HRQoL [11,13]. Resilience is regarded as the most important factor that should be assessed at the time of breast cancer diagnosis, which allows early identification of patients who may need more psychological support [11].…”

“…Although many psychological factors are related to HRQoL, the correlation among these factors and their role mechanisms to HRQoL have rarely been explored [8][9][10][11][12][13]. Considering the importance of resilience at the early stage of breast cancer rehabilitation [11], it is imperative to identify the psychological predictors of resilience, especially the variables reflecting personal coping styles and perception of social support. On this basis, the mediator role of resilience between these psychological factors and HRQoL will be further clarified.…”

Impacts of psychological resilience on self-efficacy and quality of life in patients with diabetic foot ulcers: a prospective cross-sectional study

“…Polikandrioti et al also found that the decrease of social support was significantly related to the increase of depression in DFU patients and the presence of depression would further affect the QoL of patients (18). Most importantly, low psychological resilience was identified as an important risk factor of QoL in DFU participants in our study, which is similar to how it has been shown to influence patients with other diseases (13,14).…”

“…Psychological resilience refers to how people react psychologically and behaviorally to change in their external environment. It has been reported that improved psychological resilience was related to higher QoL in patients with inflammatory bowel disease, breast cancer, and hypertension (13)(14)(15). However, no related study has yet been performed to investigate the impacts of psychological resilience on QoL in DFU patients.…”