Experiences of Changes in Cognitive Function for Women treated with Chemotherapy for Breast Cancer

Bok Yae Chung; Hye Sun Byun; Gyung Duck Kim; Kyung Hae Kim; Eun Hee Choi

doi:10.4069/kjwhn.2012.18.1.1

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Chung, Byun, Kim, Kim, and Choi: Experiences of Changes in Cognitive Function for Women treated with Chemotherapy for Breast Cancer

Original Article

Korean Journal of Women Health Nursing

Korean Journal of Women Health Nursing 2012; 18(1): 1-16.

Published online: 31 March 2012

DOI: https://doi.org/10.4069/kjwhn.2012.18.1.1

Experiences of Changes in Cognitive Function for Women treated with Chemotherapy for Breast Cancer

Bok Yae Chung¹, Hye Sun Byun², Gyung Duck Kim³, Kyung Hae Kim⁴, Eun Hee Choi⁵

¹Professor, College of Nursing, Kyungpook National University, Daegu, Korea.

²Assistant Professor, Department of Nursing, Daegu Polytechnic College, Daegu, Korea.

³Assistant Professor, Department of Nursing, Dongyang University, Yeongju, Korea.

⁴Associate Professor, Department of Nursing, Kimcheon Science College, Gimcheon, Korea.

⁵Assistant Professor, Department of Nursing, Yeungnam College of Science and Technology, Daegu, Korea.

Corresponding author: Byun, Hye Sun. Department of Nursing, Daegu Polytechnic College, 15 Dalgubul-daero 528-gil, Suseong-gu, Daegu 706-711, Korea. Tel: +82-53-749-7247, Fax: +82-53-749-7240, bbhhsun@dpu.ac.kr

Received 12 November 2011 Revised 26 January 2012 Accepted 3 February 2012

(open-access):

This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/) which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this study was to describe the experiences of the process of the change in cognitive function for women treated with chemotherapy for breast cancer.

Methods

There were ten participants in total in this study. Data were gathered utilizing in-depth interviews over 3 times from September 2010 to January 2011. Data were analyzed by employing Strauss and Corbin's (1998) grounded theory methodology.

Results

Findings indicate that causal conditions of these results were 'side effects of chemotherapy' and 'menopausal state', including contextual conditions as, 'mental fatigue' and 'anxiety about recurrence'. The core category was identified as 'confronting with unexpected chaos'. Intervening conditions were 'support from other people', 'lack of information on cognitive impairment'. Interaction strategies were 'changing the habit of life', 'making efforts for living life' and 'seeking for medical information'. Consequences of the process were 'physical restriction', 'difficulty in social life', 'disturbed working ability' and 'psychological distress'.

Conclusion

The results of this study show that nurses should recognize there is a notable difference between individual patient's contextual conditions and interactive strategies. Furthermore educational information and individualized intervention should be provided to improve cognitive function for women with breast cancer.

Keywords: Chemotherapy, Cognition, Breast neoplasms, Women

Figures and Tables

Figure 1

Experiences of cognitive function change in women treated with chemotherapy for breast cancer.

Table 1

General Characteristics of Participants

OP=operation; CT=chemotherapy; RT=radiation therapy; HT=hormone therapy.

Notes

This research was supported by Basic Science Research Program through the National Foundation of Korea (NRF) funded by the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology (No. 2010-0011091).

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