Abstract
Breast cancer is the most frequently occurring cancer among women and ranks as the fifth cause of death from cancer. Therefore, advanced breast cancer patients experience much distress due to the decline of their health, ongoing medical treatments, uncertainty about their future, and many other problematic physical symptoms, as well as the difficulty in maintaining hope. In spite of these difficulties, little is known about how patients cope with the effects of advanced cancer. Furthermore, though advanced breast cancer has serious detrimental effects on the quality of life of patients, there is limited knowledge about which interventions help to cope with the disease. The aim of this study is to investigate (1) how patients cope with advanced breast cancer, (2) what is the associated factor for coping, (3) coping as a moderator and mediator, and (4) psychological intervention to assist advanced breast cancer patients to cope.
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Megumi Uchida declares that she has no conflict of interest.
Tatsuo Akechi has received speaking fees and research grants outside of the submitted work.
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This article does not contain any studies with human or animal subjects performed by any of the authors.
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This article is part of the Topical Collection on Psycho-Oncology and Supportive Care
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Uchida, M., Akechi, T. Coping With Advanced Breast Cancer. Curr Breast Cancer Rep 7, 111–116 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12609-015-0188-x
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12609-015-0188-x