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Distinct dyadic coping profiles in Chinese couples with breast cancer

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Abstract

Purpose

Conceptualizing cancer as a dyadic stress provides new insight into how stress impacts couples with breast cancer. The present study aimed to identify subgroups with distinct dyadic coping profiles in a sample of Chinese couples with breast cancer and to determine how these subgroups differed in terms of demographic and clinical characteristics in addition to marital adjustment outcomes.

Methods

Using convenience sampling, a cross-sectional survey was conducted. Couples with breast cancer completed the general information questionnaire, the Dyadic Coping Inventory, and the Locke-Wollance Marital Adjustment Test. The modeling was performed using a latent profile analysis to identify the dyadic coping subgroups. Parametric and nonparametric tests were applied to examine between-group differences across the identified classes.

Results

The analytical results supported a three-class solution of dyadic coping groups: high (27.4%), medium (32.2%), and low (40.4%). Between-group differences were found in educational background, number of children, postoperative time, and type of surgery.

Conclusion

Most couples reported low levels of dyadic coping. The couples with an educational level of primary school or below, with one child or who were childless, and who had undergone breast preservation surgery within the past year were more likely to belong to the low dyadic coping group. When supporting couples with breast cancer, it is essential to assess several demographic and clinical risk factors in addition to the marital adjustment level to identify high-risk subgroups that warrant intervention.

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Data availability

All data presented in this paper are available from the corresponding authors upon reasonable request.

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Acknowledgements

We gratefully acknowledge the assistance of the patients and their partners who participated in this study. We also acknowledge the contributions made by the study site.

Funding

This research was supported by the Natural Science Foundation of China (71874032) and the Humanity and Social Science Youth Foundation of the Ministry of Education (20YJCZH049).

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Nursing, Fudan University, 305 Fenglin Road, Shanghai, 200032, China

    Tingting Cai, Qingmei Huang & Changrong Yuan

  2. Department of Breast Surgery, Jiaxing First Hospital, Zhejiang, China

    Jianfeng Qian

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  1. Tingting Cai
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  2. Jianfeng Qian
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Contributions

Tingting Cai was involved in the analysis and interpretation of the data and drafting of the manuscript. Jianfeng Qian contributed to the data collection. Qingmei Huang contributed to the acquisition of the data. Changrong Yuan made substantial contributions to the conception and design of the study as well as the critical revision of the manuscript for important content and gave final approval of the manuscript. Every author fully participated in this work and assumes public responsibility for the relevant part of the content. All authors participated in the revisions to this paper, the interpretation of the results, and the final approval.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Changrong Yuan.

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Ethics approval was provided by the Institutional Review Board of Jiaxing First Hospital.

Written informed consent was obtained from all patients.

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The authors declare no competing interests.

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Cai, T., Qian, J., Huang, Q. et al. Distinct dyadic coping profiles in Chinese couples with breast cancer. Support Care Cancer 29, 6459–6468 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00520-021-06237-2

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