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An Electronic Diary Study of the Effects of Patient Avoidance and Partner Social Constraints on Patient Momentary Affect in Metastatic Breast Cancer

  • Original Article
  • Published:
Annals of Behavioral Medicine

Abstract

Background

Metastatic breast cancer patients experience significance distress. Although talking with close others about cancer-related concerns may help to alleviate distress, patients often avoid such discussions, and their partners can engage in social constraints that may limit subsequent patient disclosures and exacerbate distress.

Purpose

We examined how partner constraints unfold, how they influence patient affect, and whether they exacerbate patient avoidance of cancer-related disclosures.

Methods

Fifty-four patients and 48 of their partners completed electronic diary assessments for 14 days.

Results

Partners’ social constraints carried over from one day to the next, but patients’ avoidance of discussing cancer-related concerns did not. When partners engaged in more social constraints one day, patients reported greater negative affect the following day (p < 0.05).

Conclusion

Findings suggest a temporal link between partner constraints and patient momentary affect. Helping partners to become aware of their constraining behaviors and teaching them skills to overcome this may facilitate patient adjustment to metastatic breast cancer.

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Notes

  1. The methods for handling missing data in multilevel SEM are the same as multilevel modeling and SEM more generally. Essentially, all data from cases (in this case, days) with missing outcomes are retained and maximum likelihood is used to estimate parameters in the presence of missing data under the assumption that the data are missing at random. Cases with missing data on predictors are deleted.

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Acknowledgments

This research was supported by a multi-disciplinary award from the U.S. Army Medical Research and Materiel Command W81XWH-0401-0425 (Hoda Badr, PhD, Principal Investigator). The authors thank Leslie Schart and Krystal Davis who assisted with data collection. We would also like to acknowledge the assistance of Drs. Massimo Cristofanilli, Daniel Booser, Aman Buzdar, Francisco Esteva, Ana Gonzalez-Angulo, Marjorie Greene, Nuhad Ibrahim, Lajos Pusztai, Edgardo Rivera, Vicente Valero, and Ronald Walters for allowing access to their patients for this study.

Conflict of Interest Statement

The authors have no conflict of interest to disclose.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Oncological Sciences, Mount Sinai School of Medicine, One Gustave L. Levy Place, Box 1130, New York, NY, 10029, USA

    Hoda Badr PhD

  2. Department of Psychology, University of Delaware, Newark, DE, USA

    Elizabeth C. Pasipanodya BA & Jean-Philippe Laurenceau PhD

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  1. Hoda Badr PhD
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  2. Elizabeth C. Pasipanodya BA
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  3. Jean-Philippe Laurenceau PhD
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Correspondence to Hoda Badr PhD.

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Badr, H., Pasipanodya, E.C. & Laurenceau, JP. An Electronic Diary Study of the Effects of Patient Avoidance and Partner Social Constraints on Patient Momentary Affect in Metastatic Breast Cancer. ann. behav. med. 45, 192–202 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12160-012-9436-8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12160-012-9436-8

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