The Psychosocial Implications of Mastectomy for Married Women and Their Spouses

Abstract

Women's breasts have symbolic and psychological significance beyond their functional value, therefore mastectomy may have negative psychosocial consequences in the marital situation. This study explored the psychosocial experience of 28 white females (mean age 50 years), who had undergone mastectomy in comparison with a group of 19 women who had had benign breast tumors removed. The experience of the spouses of both groups were also explored. Data were obtained by means of the Tennessee Self-concept Scale, the Dyadic Adjustment Scale and a supplementary questionnaire. Results did not entirely justify the pessimism regarding psychosocial morbidity following mastectomy. However, mastectomees revealed a strong tendency to be more defensive than the women in the comparison group. This tendency may have shielded them from both recognition and acceptance of problem areas, and may be revealing of the way they cope psychologically with the ambiguous situation of a procedure that is disfiguring on the one hand, but life saving on the other. Peri-menopausal women appear to be especially vulnerable to deleterious psychosocial sequelae post-mastectomy. Fifty per cent of the women and 44% of the men in the mastectomy group compared with 58% of the women and 11% of the men in the biopsy group, indicated a need for counselling.