Exploring The Problems and Concerns the Infertile reast Cancer Patients’ Spouses: A Qualitative Study

Background: Breast cancer diagnosis has a negative effect on patient’s spouse. On the other hand, breast cancer and infertility also cause difficult conditions in the family. Women in the fam-ily have two complementary roles: feminine and motherhood. Disruption in each of the roles causes disturbance. If there is a problem with infertility and breast cancer is added, more physi-cal and psychological problems will be imposed on the woman and family, especially patient’s spouse. In women with infertil-ity, after breast cancer, there is a possibility of impaired family and sexual functioning of couples due to changes in role, emo-tional stress, physical changes, and so on. The aim of this quali-tative study was to explore the spouses’ problems after their women breast cancer diagnosis, in Iran.Materials and Methods: Thirty participants were recruited from Motamed breast clinic in Tehran. In-depth interviews each lasting approximately one hour per participant were scheduled and conducted in a private room. The interviews intended to motivate the participants to reflect on their problems since their women’s breast cancer diagnosis. The interviews were recorded and were transcribed to elucidate the major themes encountered in the interviews.Results: The mean age of spouses was 50.7, (SD = 6./97), 25 of them (83%) were up to diploma educated, and 16 of them (53%) were self-employee. Overall, two major them were emerged from the analysis these were: 1) physical and psycho-logical problems (sexual, fatigue, anger, feeling of guilt, sad-ness) and 2) Concerns (worries about metastasizing and about their health and death and their wives fear of disclosure, bad event, financial problem).Conclusion: It seems special attention is necessary for women with history of infertility and breast cancer. For the infertile women with breast cancer, a review of the history of hormo-nal treatments is very important. Because some of their spouses are involved in infertility treatments for breast cancer. Infertil-ity treatment is effective in developing breast cancer For breast cancer infertile patients, it is important to study the history of infertility treatment and to address the psychological problems of the spouses as the most influential people in starting and continuing treatment. According to the results of this study, the main problems of spouses were fatigue, feelings of guilt, anger, lack of control and fear of metastasis. Therefore, it is recom-mended that by conducting more extensive studies and accu-rate examination of the individual and family problems of the patient s wife and beneficial interventions, it would be helpful to reduce the quality of life and to improve their quality of life.

کلیدواژه ها:

Breast Cancer ، Infertility ، Qualitative Study ، Spous-es’ Problem ، Iran