Women's perceptions of the effectiveness of telephone support and education on their adjustment to breast cancer.

Purpose/objectives: Social support is believed to be important in helping women adjust to breast cancer. Reports have suggested limited positive effects of social support on well-being, mood disturbances, and relationships with significant others for women who receive telephone support. Women's perceptions of the role of social support in recovery, however, has had limited study.

The effect of telephone social support and education on adaptation to breast cancer during the year following diagnosis.

Purpose/objectives: To find the most effective methods of providing social support for women diagnosed with breast cancer by testing the effectiveness of a telephone social support and education intervention to promote emotional and interpersonal adaptation to breast cancer.

Design: Multisite, two-group experimental study with repeated measures.

Setting: Arkansas and New Jersey.

Therapeutic touch, quiet time, and dialogue: perceptions of women with breast cancer.

Purpose/objectives: To compare the perceptions of women with breast cancer to an experimental therapeutic touch (TT) plus dialogue nursing intervention with perceptions of a control quiet time plus dialogue nursing intervention.

Design: Qualitative study based on the Science of Unitary Human Beings.

Setting: Data collected as part of a larger experimental study of the effects of TT on pre- and postoperative anxiety and mood and postoperative pain in women with breast cancer.

Effects of two types of social support and education on adaptation to early-stage breast cancer.

A Roy adaptation model-based support and education intervention for women with early-stage breast cancer was tested in a three-group, three-phase randomized clinical trial of a sample of 125 women. The experimental group received 13 months of combined individual telephone and in-person group support and education, Control Group 1 received 13 months of telephone-only individual support and education, and Control Group 2 received one-time mailed educational information. The experimental group and Control Group 1 reported less mood disturbance at the end of all three phases, less loneliness at the end of Phases II and III, and a higher-quality relationship with a significant other at the end of Phase II than did Control Group 2.