now considered as a special life event. It vastly affects such scopes of personality functioning as body image, emotions, mind and behavior. The impact of altered physical appearance in cancer patients may be underestimated due to the key... more
now considered as a special life event. It vastly affects such scopes of personality functioning as body image, emotions, mind and behavior. The impact of altered physical appearance in cancer patients may be underestimated due to the key motivation to survive. However, after all steps of cancer treatment a survivor has to accept his or her new physical appearance. Individual differences in the process of coping with a visible disfigurement could be explained based on the concept of resilience. The aim of this research project was to study factors predicting psychological resilience in cancer patients disfigured after surgical treatment. Participants were recruited at the Ryazan Region Oncology Clinic (Russia). The sample consisted of 50 patients with cancer (11 patients with head and neck cancer; 39 patients with breast cancer; age ranged from 33 to 72, with a mean of 55.4 years). Obtained in this study factors predicting psychosocial resilience in disfigured cancer patients are the following: (1) positive self-attitude; (2) quality of life; (3) optimism; (4) social support; (5) problem solving. Psychological diagnostics of the factors predicting psychosocial resilience is an important step in the rehabilitation.
