Psychosomatic Primary Care in Gynecology-Assessment and Acceptance by Residents for Obstetrics and Gynecology in Germany.

The course "Psychosomatic Primary Care" has been part of the training curriculum of obstetrics and gynecology in Germany since 2003. The aim of the course is to train up physicians, whose prior training primarily focussed on somatic care, to enable them to offer care also taking into account biopsychosocial aspects. Taking the guidelines for psychotherapy as a template, the aim of psychosomatic primary care is to recognize the etiological links between psychological and somatic factors which contribute to diseases.

[Consenting and declining patients for an intervention group after breast cancer surgery differ in terms of quality of life, coping and immunological functional assays].

Objective: Psychosocial intervention during the course of cancer is still being controversially disputed in psychosomatic studies. Immunological and endocrinological parameters can serve as links in observing the influence of the interactive processes involved.

Material And Methods: The approach to determine whether psychotherapeutic intervention can lead to an improved quality of life on the one hand, and to a change in immune defenses in breast cancer patients as well, employed using the EORTC QLQ-C30 and optimistic self-efficacy (OKE) as well as evaluating lymphocyte subpopulations, lymphocyte proliferation and NK cell activity.

[Coping with illness/quality of life and immunologic parameters of patients with breast carcinoma and benign tumors].

Objective: Maladaptive coping of the cancer illness leads to considerable psychosocial burden which can-as a chronic stress factor-impair various immune functions, e.g. cellular immunity.