Cancer-specific Relationship Awareness, Relationship Communication, and Intimacy Among Couples Coping with Early Stage Breast Cancer

Abstract

If couples can maintain normalcy and quality in their relationship during the cancer experience, they may experience greater relational intimacy. Cancer-specific relationship awareness, which is an attitude defined as partners focusing on the relationship and thinking about how they might maintain normalcy and cope with cancer as a couple or "team", is one factor that may help couples achieve this goal. The main aim of this study was to evaluate the associations between cancer-specific relationship awareness, cancer-specific communication (i.e., talking about cancer's impact on the relationship, disclosure, and responsiveness to partner disclosure), and relationship intimacy and evaluate whether relationship communication mediated the association between relationship awareness and intimacy. Two hundred fifty four women diagnosed with early stage breast cancer and their partners completed measures of cancer-specific relationship awareness, relationship talk, self-and perceived partner disclosure, perceived partner responsiveness, and relationship intimacy. Results indicated that patients and spouses who were higher in cancer-specific relationship awareness engaged in more relationship talk, reported higher levels of self-disclosure, and perceived that their partner disclosed more. Their partners reported that they were more responsive to disclosures. Relationship talk and perceived partner responsiveness mediated the association between cancer-specific relationship awareness and intimacy. Helping couples consider ways they can maintain normalcy and quality during the cancer experience and framing coping with cancer as a "team" effort may facilitate better communication and ultimately enhance relationship intimacy.

Keywords: Relationship awareness; breast cancer; couples; intimacy; relationship communication; relationship talk.

Figure 1

Mediation model depicting that the actor and partner effects of relationship awareness on intimacy are mediated by actor effects in relationship communication. PT denotes patient-reported variables and SP denotes spouse/partner-reported variables. Note. Although not shown, the residuals across all of eight mediator variables were allowed to correlate with one another, as were patient and spouse relationship awareness. Solid lines represent actor effects and dashed lines represent partner effects. Parameters shown are standardized path coefficients