Anxiety and support in breast cancer: is this different for affluent and deprived women? A questionnaire study

Abstract

A postal questionnaire was sent to affluent and deprived women with breast cancer in order to compare psychosocial aspects of care with the purpose of understanding the balance of care and explaining why deprived women have poorer outcomes. Data were collected regarding reported sources of information, SF-36 scores and ongoing causes of anxiety. The results demonstrate that affluent women were more likely to have received information from their hospital specialist (94.8 vs 76.0%) and from a breast care nurse (70.1 vs 40.0%) than deprived women. They were also more likely to have received information from magazines (50.6 vs 33.0%), newspapers (45.5 vs 22.0%) and television news (45.5 vs 26.0%). Deprived women had poorer SF-36 scores than affluent women, and reported greater anxiety about money (12.2 vs 2.8%), other health problems (22.1 vs 8.2%) and family problems (17.5 vs 6.9%). Personal and professional support is clearly important for patients with breast cancer. Health professionals need to be aware of the greater psychological distress demonstrated by deprived women, even some years after diagnosis with breast cancer, and seek to address it.