Women and prostate cancer support groups: The gender connect?

Cancer support group participation in the United Kingdom: a national survey

“…This is compatible with evidence that female cancer patients are emotionally more affected than men by their disease and have greater need for psychosocial support [36]. The value of groups in providing this support has been described in interview studies [37,38] and was also suggested by a prospective study of 56 Iranian women with breast cancer who experienced significant reductions in anxiety and depression after 12 months of attending a support group [39].…”

Heterosexual couples and prostate cancer support groups: a gender relations analysis

“…Typically, such relations are embedded in traditional gender regimes whereby men perceive themselves as open to, requiring and deserving of spousal care, and women align to feminine ideals of nurturing, often directly managing or overseeing their male partner's health [5,[16][17][18][19]. For example, female partners can be the conduit for arranging their male partner's appointments with physicians [20] or the family's primary health care provider [21][22][23].…”

“…Psychosocial supports and information are therefore integral to men's illness-management, and within heterosexual couples women often play important roles in the direct provision of care and/or affirmation about the acceptability of men seeking PCa supportive care [3]. Within the context of supportive care, prostate cancer support groups (PCSGs) have also emerged as important community-based resources for men and their partners [4,5]. As part of their engagement with their partner's health, some women attend PCSGs; yet the specificities and dynamics of how this plays out are poorly understood.…”

Psychosocial Oncology Supports for Men

“…Despite these patterns, studies of men-centered psychosocial oncology programs have seldom explicitly considered and/or significantly engaged with gender dynamics, with the exception of some PCSG research (e.g., Bottorff et al, 2008;). In carefully reviewing how gender was included within the extant research, it is evident that while scholars might integrate the language of gender to categorize their sample or observe that disease and/or treatment impacts on sexual function can influence men's sense of masculinity, few have included details on their conceptualization of gender, integrated a theory-based foundation in gender and health (or referenced related literature), examined the reality of masculinities, and/or systematically distilled within the analysis or related discussion how men's needs, preferences, or experiences of cancer supports were informed by societal expectations of men.…”