Disease appraisals as a coping strategy with cancer threat.

The aim of the present study was to test the hypotheses that minimizing cancer threat is a prevalent and useful coping strategy for breast cancer patients. Forty-nine primary breast cancer patients and a comparison group of 57 healthy women appraised cancer, heart disease and surgery. The hypotheses were confirmed. Breast cancer patients appraised cancer and the two other disease states significantly more optimistically than did healthy respondents. Breast cancer patients appraised the three diseases more optimistically at the beginning of the post-mastectomy year than at its end, and patients with worse prognoses appraised cancer in a more optimistic direction than patients with a more favorable one. More minimization was prospectively related to a better social adjustment.