IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/socmed/v23y1986i11p1139-1145.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Concern about cancer in women undergoing elective gynaecological surgery

Author

Listed:
  • Steptoe, Andrew
  • Horti, Jane
  • Stanton, Stuart

Abstract

Interviews were conducted with 63 women aged 18-75 shortly after their admission to hospital for routine non-cancer gynaecological surgery. Three groups were studied: major surgery, chiefly hysterectomy, carried out for benign conditions (n=25); minor surgery such as dilatation and curettage (n=29); fertility investigations and sterilisations (n=9). Women were asked whether they worried if they were suffering from seven serious illness including heart disease, breast canser and gynaecological cancer (cancer of the cervix, womb or ovaries). Significantly more women were concerned that they suffered from gynaecological cancer than any other illness. When asked why they were worried, over 85% of those expressing concern believed that their current gynaecological problem stemmed from cancer. Worry about gynaecological cancer was positively associated with psychiatric status and gynaecological knowledge, and negatively with satisfaction with treatment. A link with presenting clinical symptoms was also identified. This study revealed high levels of unwarranted distress in women undergoing routine surgery. Such fears may not be allayed, since surgeons and staff may not consider cancer to be relevant to the patient's clinical condition.

Suggested Citation

  • Steptoe, Andrew & Horti, Jane & Stanton, Stuart, 1986. "Concern about cancer in women undergoing elective gynaecological surgery," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 23(11), pages 1139-1145, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:23:y:1986:i:11:p:1139-1145
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0277-9536(86)90331-X
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Craig W. Trumbo & Katherine A. McComas & Prathana Kannaovakun, 2007. "Cancer Anxiety and the Perception of Risk in Alarmed Communities," Risk Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 27(2), pages 337-350, April.
    2. Craig W. Trumbo & Katherine A. McComas & John C. Besley, 2008. "Individual‐ and Community‐Level Effects on Risk Perception in Cancer Cluster Investigations," Risk Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 28(1), pages 161-178, February.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:23:y:1986:i:11:p:1139-1145. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/315/description#description .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.