Psychological and reproductive decision-making experiences of young women after breast cancer diagnosis: a qualitative study.

Content Provider	Europe PMC
Author	Qiu, Jiajia Tang, Lichen Li, Ping Liu, Guangyu Rong, Xinyi
Abstract	BackgroundBreast cancer has the highest incidence rate among malignant tumors in China, with a trend of affecting younger women. The treatment has short- and long-term adverse effects such as damage to the ovaries, which may result in infertility. Such consequences then increase patients’ concerns over future reproduction. At present, nor do medical staffs continuously assess their overall well-being, or ensure that they have the knowledge necessary to manage their reproductive concerns. This qualitative study aimed to explore psychological and reproductive decision-making experiences of young women who had experienced childbirth after their diagnosis.MethodsThe phenomenological research, as a kind of qualitative study, was conducted on 12 young women who experienced childbirth after breast cancer diagnosis. Data collection was from September 2021 to January 2022 and content analysis method was used to analyze the data.ResultsFive main themes were identified: (1) desire for childbearing from individual, familial, and social aspects after the diagnosis of breast cancer; (2) emotional experiences through pregnancy till raising children; (3) support needs from professionals, family, and peer; (4) self and doctors’ influencing factors on reproductive decision-making; and (5) satisfaction with the outcome of reproductive decision-making.ConclusionsThe desire for childbearing of young women should be considered during the reproductive decision-making process. A multidisciplinary team is suggested to be set up to provide professional support. During the reproductive process, professional and peer support should be strengthened to improve decision-making abilities, alleviate negative emotional experience, and smoothen the process of reproductive experience for young patients.
ISSN	09414355
Journal	Supportive Care in Cancer
Volume Number	31
PubMed Central reference number	PMC10293424
Issue Number	7
PubMed reference number	37358675
e-ISSN	14337339
DOI	10.1007/s00520-023-07880-7
Language	English
Publisher	Springer Berlin Heidelberg
Publisher Date	2023-06-26
Publisher Place	Berlin/Heidelberg
Access Restriction	Open
Rights License	Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. © The Author(s) 2023
Subject Keyword	Breast cancer Psychological Reproductive decision-making Experience Young Qualitative
Content Type	Text
Resource Type	Article
Subject	Rehabilitation Oncology (nursing) Oncology