COPING WITH CHEMOTHERAPY FOR BREAST-CANCER

Relations among coping, physical symptoms, and affect were investigate d in 43 women undergoing adjuvant chemotherapy for breast cancer. Pati ents were assessed at the same point in their treatment so that the ti me for which coping was reported would be equivalent across individual s. Patients were asked how they coped specifically with chemotherapy, rather than how they coped with cancer in general, to make the domain specific. Positive and negative affect were assessed separately, using a scale free of somatic content. Relations between coping and affect were consistent with prior studies that have employed a general approa ch to assessing coping. Coping correlates of positive and negative moo d differed. When the relations between physical symptoms and affect we re examined, physical symptoms were related to negative affect but not to positive affect. Findings are discussed in terms of their implicat ions for coping with cancer as well as their implications for the gene ral coping literature.