Social Support Is Linked to Post-Traumatic Growth among Tunisian Postoperative Breast Cancer Women

Abstract

The struggle with breast cancer (BC) is often associated with positive changes after diagnosis and treatment, that are being referred to as posttraumatic growth (PTG). We aimed to examine PTG and its relationship with psychosocial (i.e., psychological distress, spiritual well-being, social support), sociodemographic and cancer-related variables in Tunisian women operated on for breast cancer. This was a cross-sectional study. Seventy-nine (79) postoperative BC women were administered the Post-Traumatic Growth Inventory, the Spiritual Well-being Scale, the Depression, Anxiety and Stress Scales, and the Multidimensional Scale of Perceived Social Support. The changes most frequently reported by participants were discovering that they were stronger than they thought they were (70.0%), having stronger religious faith (65.0%), and being better able to accept the way things work out (63.8%). Multivariate analysis showed that anxiety and social support remained significantly associated with PTG, while no significant relationship has been found for spiritual well-being. Overall, the present study adds to the existing body of research by identifying factors related to women’ s experience of PTG in a previously unexplored Arab Muslim cultural context, Tunisia. We believe that our findings may help inform strategies aiming at promoting positive psychological changes after experiencing BC, at least in our context.