Factors Affecting Sexual Function of Breast Cancer Women After Receiving Cancer Treatment

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

doi:10.5388/aon.2013.13.2.85

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Byun, Chung, Kim, Kim, and Choi: Factors Affecting Sexual Function of Breast Cancer Women After Receiving Cancer Treatment

Original Article

Asian Oncology Nursing 2013; 13(2): 85-94.

Published online: 30 June 2013

DOI: https://doi.org/10.5388/aon.2013.13.2.85

Factors Affecting Sexual Function of Breast Cancer Women After Receiving Cancer Treatment

Hye Sun Byun¹, Bok Yae Chung², Gyung Duck Kim³, Kyung Hae Kim⁴, Eun Hee Choi⁵

¹Department of Nursing, Suseong College, Daegu, Korea.

²School of Nursing, Kyungpook National University, Daegu, Korea.

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

⁴Department of Nursing, Kimcheon Science College, Kimcheon, Korea.

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

Address reprint requests to: Chung, Bok Yae. School of Nursing, Kyungpook National University, 680 Gukchaebosang-ro, Jung-gu, Daegu 700-422, Korea. Tel: +82-53-420-4933, Fax: +82-53-425-1258, bychung@knu.ac.kr

Received 15 March 2013 Accepted 24 June 2013

(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 identify factors affecting sexual function in breast cancer women after receiving cancer treatment.

Methods

The participants were 152 patients treated at medical center. Data were collected through a structured questionnaire from 'October 4th to December 30th', 2011. The instruments used in this study were sexual function, pain, fatigue, body image, depression, anxiety, stress and spousal support. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics, t-test, ANOVA, Pearson correlation coefficients and stepwise multiple regression with the SPSS 18.0.

Results

The mean score of sexual function was 14.37. The lowest score among sexual function was arousal. The scores of sexual function was significantly different by age, menopause, tumor stage. There were significant correlations between sexual function, pain, body image, fatigue and depression. In multiple regression analysis, factors affecting sexual function were identified as age, tumor stage, pain, body image and fatigue that explained 62.5% of the variance.

Conclusion

The findings indicate that it is necessary to develop a more effective sexual function improvement program for breast cancer women after receiving cancer treatment.

Keywords: Breast Neoplasms, Sexuality

Figures and Tables

Table 1

Sexual Function Index according to General and Disease Related Characteristics of Breast Cancer Women (N=152)

MRM=Modified Radical Mastectomy.

Table 2

Descriptive Statistics of Study Variables (N=152)

Table 3

Correlates of Sexual Function Index of Breast Cancer Women (N=152)

Table 4

Factors Affecting Sexual Function in Breast Cancer Women (N=152)

Adj R^2*=Adjusted R Square.

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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