RESEARCH COMMUNICATION Family Support in Cancer Survivorship

Cancer is a major health issue worldwide. Likewise in Malaysia as reported by Lim (2005), “this disease has become increasingly important as a public health concern with the development and progress that has been achieved in this country” (p. 37). According to the Malaysian National Cancer Registry report 2002, one in four Malaysians will get cancer in their life time (Lim et al., 2003). This means that out of the estimated 28,250,500 people in Malaysia, 7,062,625 are at risk of developing some sort of cancer during their lifetime (Wikipedia, 2011). In 2006, breast cancer was the most important cancer in Malaysia and also the most common cancer among women (Omar et al., 2006). “A Malaysian women’s cumulative risk of getting breast cancer during her lifetime is 1 in 19 with the highest risk being in Chinese women (1 in 14)” (Parsa et al., 2008). Approximately, out of 100 women who are afflicted with cancer, 30 of them will be breast cancer patients (Lim et al., 2003). This data shows that breast cancer is a serious disease in Malaysian society. Yip et al (2009) conducted a study on breast cancer in Malaysia and found that 81.7% of breast cancer patients were on stage 1, 72.4% on stage 2, 39.9% on stage 3 and 12.9% on stage 4. It would seem that most of the patients are in early stage (stage one or two) breast cancer, and their chance for recovery is high. Even though the number of deaths from breast cancer is slowly declining, the incidence is still high and therefore cancer survivors need continued support. In fact, breast cancer has an impact