Study of relationship between counterfactual thinking and the strategies for confronting the stress in women with breast cancer who are insured by Sepah Bank Insurance in Iran

According to the Cancer Research Center, Iran has the first record of the breast cancer in the Middle East, so that,each year 8 out of 100,000 women develop breast cancer in this country. Moreover, 30 out of 100,000 women in Iran are in the age with the highest risk of developing breast cancer. Being informed of the diagnosis of cancer can bephysically and emotionally stressful for patients and for their families. Human beings when faced with negative and unexpected events such as illness react in the different ways. This thought that how easily they could have prevented the happening of this incident keeps annoying them. This research using correlational study aims to examine the relationship between counterfactual thinking and the strategies for confronting the stress in women with breast cancer who are insured by Sepah Bank Insurance in Iran. To achieve this goal, 50 women insured by Sepah Bank Insurance completed the questionnaire of the strategies for confronting the stress of Jallowice and that ofCounterfactual Thinking for Negative Events Scale of Cohen in autumn 92 (October – December, 2013). The results were analyzed by correlation tests. The results show a strong positive relationship between the dimensions of the coping strategies questionnaire and the Counterfactual Thinking for Negative Events Scale among the women withbreast cancer. Counterfactual thoughts not only improve the personal consequences in the future but also increase the ability of the individual to deal with stressful and negative situations which can be effective in the coping strategies of the patients.

کلیدواژه ها:

Counterfactual Thinking ، the strategies for confronting the stress ، the breast cancer