Adjustment of Young Women Survived Breast Cancer-Literature Review
Adjustment of Young Women Survived Breast Cancer
Literature Review
The Target Group
To define the target group appropriately is essential to include all the candidates of the group and to identify the unique attributes of this group. In this paper, as in many other researches in this field, the target group is defined as women who are under age 50 at diagnosis of breast cancer and survived without recurrence or the development of other forms of cancer (Bloom et al., 2004).
This definition has two main implications of the target group’s biological status and life stage (Dunn & Steginga, 2000): First of all, the women are of child bearing age, which means they have reproductive capacity and they believe that the selves are on the life stage of having children. They may have young children or no child currently. Secondly, the women have not yet reached menopause, which means they can still be sexual active.
Due to their relative youth, the target group tends to have more aggressive treatment. And thus, they are especially vulnerable to physical and psychosocial late effects of the treatment (Bloom et al., 2004). Moreover, the target group is a significant part of all cases of breast cancer. Hence, to analyze and facilitate the adjustment of this specific group is very salient.
Stressors and Concerns
According to the previous researches, the target group has three major stressors. First and foremost, because of their vulnerability, the concern and fear of recurrence and other health problems (Dunn & Steginga, 2000) is a chronic stressor that may stay for the whole life of the target group members. Obviously, this stressor has negative valence. And it is a common issue among all fatal disease survivors. Because it is not unique for the target group, there were not many researches on this topic.
And secondly, the fertility issue is also a major concern of the target group. On the one side, with many women delaying the birth of their first child, a proportion of
Literature Review
The Target Group
To define the target group appropriately is essential to include all the candidates of the group and to identify the unique attributes of this group. In this paper, as in many other researches in this field, the target group is defined as women who are under age 50 at diagnosis of breast cancer and survived without recurrence or the development of other forms of cancer (Bloom et al., 2004).
This definition has two main implications of the target group’s biological status and life stage (Dunn & Steginga, 2000): First of all, the women are of child bearing age, which means they have reproductive capacity and they believe that the selves are on the life stage of having children. They may have young children or no child currently. Secondly, the women have not yet reached menopause, which means they can still be sexual active.
Due to their relative youth, the target group tends to have more aggressive treatment. And thus, they are especially vulnerable to physical and psychosocial late effects of the treatment (Bloom et al., 2004). Moreover, the target group is a significant part of all cases of breast cancer. Hence, to analyze and facilitate the adjustment of this specific group is very salient.
Stressors and Concerns
According to the previous researches, the target group has three major stressors. First and foremost, because of their vulnerability, the concern and fear of recurrence and other health problems (Dunn & Steginga, 2000) is a chronic stressor that may stay for the whole life of the target group members. Obviously, this stressor has negative valence. And it is a common issue among all fatal disease survivors. Because it is not unique for the target group, there were not many researches on this topic.
And secondly, the fertility issue is also a major concern of the target group. On the one side, with many women delaying the birth of their first child, a proportion of