Exploring Relationship between Mental Disorders and Coping Strategies in Patients with Breast Cancer

Objective: Breast cancer as a most common invasive cancer in women, provoking mental disorders for patients. To adjust with this situation, patients use kind of coping style. In present study, we aimed to determine the relationship between mental disorders and coping style in women with breast cancer.  Methods: This research was a correlational study. 127 women among all women with breast cancer who were referred to health centers in the city of Kermanshah randomly selected. To estimate psychological distress, DASS- 42 questionnaire, and coping strategies Billings and Moos questionnaire (1981) are used. Interactive effects were assessed by using the spss 17.  Results: results show that there are significant positive relationships between anxiety, stress and depression with avoidance coping strategy. And high level of anxiety and depression provoking emotion coping strategy.The results of the stepwise regression showed that depression and stress are suitable predictors of avoiding coping style whereas to predict emotion coping strategy, stress and anxiety are valid.  Conclusion: Mental disorders can be one of the important factors in characterize of coping style. Therefore our result demonstrates the importance of mental disorders on coping style in breast cancer.