The Relationship between Personality Traits, Improvement and Recurrence in women with Breast Cancer

Breast cancer is a common disease in women. Approximately one third of cancers in women arise in the breast. Despite an overall improvement in disease, many breast cancer patients will still experience a recurrence of their disease. Many factors cause it. Relation between Personality Traits and disease recurrence is important issue in the recent decades. Thus, the goal of this study was to investigate the probable links between personality traits, improvement and recurrence of breast cancer.Methods: Participants were 78 women aged 27-68 with breast cancer (improved =33 and with recurrence =45), which recruit to private clinics in Tehran. Participants completed the HEXACO-Personality-Inventory (HEXACO-P -I) that contains 100 items with 6 wide components of Honesty-Humility, Emotionality, Extraversion, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, and Openness to experience. Likert scoring style is used in this questionnaire with a range of scores from 1 to 5.Results:The results indicated that positive correlations (r = .71 - .78, p<.01) between Agreeableness and Openness to experience with breast cancer improvement, and low correlation with other factors (r= .23- .30, p<.01). Emotionality had negative correlation with improvement (r= -.81, p<.01).Discussion:We found significant and meaningful relationships for personality traits and cancer recurrence. Emotionality appeared to be the most consistent predictor for recurrence. Also, Agreeableness and Openness to experience can play dramatic role in cancer improvement.

کلیدواژه ها:

personality trait ، breast cancer ، recurrence