Fear of cancer recurrence and its relationship with couple support and quality of life in breast cancer patients undergoing surgery

ObjectiveTo analyze the status of fear of cancer recurrence and its relationship with couple support and quality of life in breast cancer patients undergoing surgery.

MethodsA total of 769 postoperative patients with breast cancer were selected as the research object.The patients were investigated by using the fear of progression questionnaire-short form (FoP-Q-SF), couple support questionnaire (CSQ), and functional assessment of cancer therapy-generic scale (FACT-G), and the relationship between FoP-Q-SF score and CSQ score or FACT-G score was also analyzed.

ResultsThe questionnaire survey results showed that the incidence of fear of cancer recurrence was 52.67% (405/769) in patients with breast cancer undergoing surgery.Pearson correlation analysis revealed a significant negative correlation between FoP-Q-SF score and CSQ score or FACT-G score (P < 0.01), and a significant positive correlation between CSQ score and FACT-G score(P < 0.01).Logistic regression analysis further showed that age < 40 years old(OR=3.674), clinical stage Ⅲa(OR=3.115), CSQ score ≤ 49.29 points(OR=3.843), and FACT-G score ≤ 41.36 points(OR=2.774) were independent risk factors for fear of cancer recurrence in postoperative breast cancer patients(all P < 0.01).

ConclusionsPostoperative patients with breast cancer have a high level of fear of cancer recurrence, which is correlated with couple support and quality of life.Therefore, clinical intervention targeting these factors could be helpful in reducing the fear of cancer recurrence for postoperative breast cancer patients.