Lavery J F, Clarke V A
School of Psychology, Deakin University, Victoria, Australia.
Cancer Nurs. 1996 Feb;19(1):20-8. doi: 10.1097/00002820-199602000-00003.
In this retrospective questionnaire study of a convenience sample of 244 Australian women, type of causal attributions and their impact on coping strategies adopted by women with breast cancer were studied in relation to women's adjustment to their illness. Although 70% of the women made attributions about their cancer's origins, these women were not significantly better adjusted than women who had not make an attribution. Of those women who had made a causal attribution, type of attribution, whether controllable or uncontrollable (based on perceptions as to the controllability/uncontrollability of the cause of the disease), determined the extent to which exhibited information-seeking behavior. In the present study, women who perceived the cause of their cancer as emanating from uncontrollable circumstances were more active in seeking information about breast cancer than women who perceived the cause of their cancer as emanating from controllable circumstances. Different types of coping strategies adopted by women were associated with adjustment. Women who rated their adjustment as excellent displayed lower levels of helplessness, made fewer changes to their social behavior, were more anxiously preoccupied with their illness, sought more alternatives to medical therapy, and exhibited more information-seeking behavior than did their less-well-adjusted counterparts. The theoretical and practical implications of these results are discussed.
在这项针对244名澳大利亚女性的便利样本进行的回顾性问卷调查研究中，研究了因果归因类型及其对乳腺癌女性所采用应对策略的影响与女性对疾病的适应情况之间的关系。尽管70%的女性对自己癌症的病因进行了归因，但这些女性在适应方面并不比未进行归因的女性明显更好。在那些进行了因果归因的女性中，归因类型，无论是可控的还是不可控的（基于对疾病病因可控性/不可控性的认知），决定了她们表现出信息寻求行为的程度。在本研究中，认为自己癌症病因源于不可控情况的女性比认为癌症病因源于可控情况的女性在寻求乳腺癌信息方面更积极。女性采用的不同类型应对策略与适应情况相关。自我评估适应情况为优秀的女性表现出较低水平的无助感，对社交行为的改变较少，对疾病更为焦虑，寻求更多医疗治疗替代方案，并且比适应情况较差的女性表现出更多的信息寻求行为。讨论了这些结果的理论和实际意义。
