Shifting perspectives: family-focused oncology nursing Research.

PURPOSE/OBJECTIVES: To analyze five common assumptions about a family's adjustment to breast cancer and to suggest needed future directions for family-focused research.

DATA SOURCES

Published research in nursing, psychiatry, behavioral medicine, and psycho-oncology about families' functioning with breast cancer.

DATA SYNTHESIS

Evidence from published research is that family members do not modify their coping behavior in response to illness-related pressures, do not appear to learn over time how to manage illness-related concerns, are not responsive to each other's thoughts and feelings about cancer, experience tension in the marriage from cancer, and neither understand nor assist children affected by a mother's breast cancer.

CONCLUSIONS

Current assumptions about how families function with breast cancer need to be replaced with a more informed, data-based view that guides the development of better programs and services for assisting families.

IMPLICATIONS FOR NURSING

Future research and interventions need to address the impact of breast cancer on the primary relationships in a household, the impact of the illness on the family's core functions, and the family members' competencies to manage the illness.