Almost 2 million breast cancer survivors reside in the United States.
An increase in consumer advocacy and media attention to this disease h
as helped bring breast cancer survivorship to the forefront of public
attention. This has led to increased attention on quality of life (QOL
) issues for these survivors of breast cancer. This two-part article p
resents the results of a qualitative, descriptive study evaluating the
QOL of 21 breast cancer survivors. This study is based on our concept
ual model of QOL including physical, psychological, social, and spirit
ual well-being. Part I of this article describes the impact of breast
cancer on the physical and social domains of QOL based on in-depth int
erviews with breast cancer survivors.