ARE COPING STRATEGIES RELATED TO DISEASE OUTCOME IN EARLY BREAST-CANCER

A consecutive series of 107 women with early breast cancer were invest igated for coping strategies and disease outcome 5 to 6 years after pr imary surgical treatment (mastectomy or lumpectomy). Coping was assess ed several times during a 3-year investigation period by the Zurich an d Freiburg Questionnaires of Coping with Illness (ZQCI,FQCI). Data ana lysis revealed no significant correlations between coping strategies a nd the target variable ''death from breast cancer''. However, signific ant relations were found between postsurgical tumour size (p less than or equal to 0.01), positive histological node status (p less than or equal to 0.01) and death from breast cancer. The results of a discrimi nant analysis also indicated that somatic parameters are more importan t for the course of breast cancer disease than psychological aspects o f coping. The role of psychosocial variables for the outcome of cancer disease remains unclear and further studies in this field are necessa ry.