Adjustment of gynecological and breast cancer patients to the cancer diagnosis: Comparisons with males and females having other cancer sites

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Abstract
Newly diagnosed cancer patients (N = 133) were studied to determine gender‐based differences in initial adjustment and whether, within the female population, women with gynecological or breast cancer adjust differently. The Brief Symptom Inventory (BSI) and the Rand Health Insurance Study‐General Weil‐Being Schedule (HIS‐GWB) were used to measure anxiety, depression, hostility, somatization, and general psychological distress or psychological well‐being. There were no gender differences on any of the measures when men were compared with women. However, when gynecological/breast cancer patients were analyzed separately from women with other forms of cancer, they were significantly less depressed, anxious, and hostile; they had less somatization, less psychological distress, and greater psychological well‐being. These findings may be related to the perception of their illness as being less serious than that of other females with cancer.

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