Psychosocial Adjustment of Patients and Their Partners Following Breast Cancer Diagnosis

Breast cancer is a major life event. A patient's experience of breast cancer may depend heavily on her intimate partner. However, both patients and partners may experience depressed mood or other psychosocial adjustment problems. Individual and relationship factors, such as the couple's joint efforts to deal with the cancer experience, are likely to contribute to their psychosocial adjustment. More knowledge is needed on the adjustment problems patients and partners experience and how they deal with them.

The study investigates the following research questions:

• Which psychosocial adjustment problems do patients and partners experience throughout the cancer trajectory?
• To what extent do the patient's psychosocial adjustment problems influence the partner's psychosocial adjustment problems and vice versa?
• Which factors are associated with psychosocial adjustment problems?
• How do different strategies of dyadic coping influence the psychosocial adjustment of both the patient and the partner?

A prospective, population-based cohort will be established of women diagnosed with breast cancer in Denmark and their partners. The study combines questionnaire data and data from nationwide clinical and administrative registries.

An invitation letter and study material will be sent to patients by mail. Patients will be asked to invite their partner to participate in the study. Only couples in which both the patient and the partner wish to participate will be asked to complete the questionnaire at 5 and 12 months of follow-up.

Up to 3000 couples (3000 patients and 3000 partners) will be asked to participate in the study during the one year inclusion period.

Inclusion criteria

• For patients: being a female patient diagnosed with primary breast cancer within the last four months
• For patients: cohabiting with a male partner/spouse
• For partners: being the male cohabiting partner/spouse of a patient diagnosed with primary breast cancer within the last four months

Exclusion criteria

• For patients: previous diagnosis of breast cancer or breast cancer relapse