Feelings and Spiritual Practices of Patients with Mastectomy: A Qualitative Study from Turkey

Purpose: This study was conducted to describe feelings and spiritual practices of patients with mastectomy. Method: The study was employed a qualitative design at a private university hospital oncology unit in Ankara, Turkey. Interviews were performed with 20 mastectomized women. Results: The findings indicated that commonly used in several spiritual practices; prayer was used by 96%, of the patients, and 94% requested that others pray for their health, the practice to positive reframing (76%), the practice to planning for family-friends activities (74%), visiting mosque-shrine (73%), and the practice to reading Quran (71%). The categorization of the data led to identification of three thematic units. The first we described as “Experiencing the consequences of illness as a disorder”. The second was “Restoring a sense of order to life”, and the third was “Living with the new condition”. Conclusion: We concluded that a having mastectomy was difficult for the subjects. In this respect, nurses’ role is vital to help women with breast cancer in such a difficult and modifying process as breast removal.