METHODS
The sample of the study consisted of 76 Turkish patients who had gynecological cancer. The Patient
Information Form, Body Image Scale (BIS), Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale (RSES) and Beck Depression
Inventory (BDI) were used to collect data in this study. The independent-samples t-test, one-way
ANOVA test, Tukey and tamhane"s t2 multiple comparison tests, and Pearson correlation analysis were
used for the analyses of data in this study.
RESULTS
In the study, 30.3% of the patients were between 60-69 years old; 64.5% were married; 42.1% were primary
school graduates, and 84.2% were housewives. 94.7% of the patients had negative body images
and experienced depressive symptoms, and 77.6% of them were found to have low levels of self-esteem.
It was determined that there was a significant negative correlation between BIS and BDI (r=-0.822;
p<0.001); a significant and positive correlation between BIS and RSES (r=0.747; p<0.001), and a significant
and negative correlation between RSES and BDI (r=-0.793; p<0.001).
CONCLUSION
The findings obtained in this study showed that patients with gynecological cancer experienced severe
depressive symptoms, and their body image and self-esteem states were affected negatively. Patients
with gynecological cancer need psychosocial support with a holistic approach in addition to medical
treatment.
Keywords: Body image; depression; gynecological cancers; self-esteem
In a study that evaluated the relationship between
gynecological cancers and depression, major depression
was detected in 24.1% of the patients.[
Depression experienced commonly by gynecological
cancer patients depends on many factors. Some
of these factors are uncertainty about the treatment
process, fear for the metastasis of disease to other organs
and fear of death, changes in sexuality, difficulties
in daily life activities, low emotional support and deterioration
in self-esteem and body image.[
In many societies and in our country, reproductive
organs are accepted as indicators of fertility, femininity,
sexuality, and motherhood of women; and play a decisive
role in shaping women"s body image, self-esteem
and sexual identity. Many women consider their reproductive
organs and their functions as equal to being a
woman.[
This change in a woman"s perception of her own
body causes a negative body image and low self-esteem.[
Today, modern nursing practices aim to realize
biopsychosocial approaches and to provide holistic
care services to integrate physical and psychosocial
care. The holistic approach requires addressing an individual's response towards the disease together with
the disease itself. Identifying and treating psychosocial
problems of gynecological cancer patients are important
in providing holistic patient care and in increasing
the quality of treatment-care.
Although there are some studies in the literature
on the psychosocial effects of cancer in Turkey, to our
knowledge, no studies were found on the body image,
self-esteem and depression levels of women with gynecological
cancer. It was decided to conduct this current
study to provide data for future research and to provide
holistic care for women with gynecological cancer.
This study was carried out to investigate the states
of body image, self-esteem and depression in patients
with gynecological cancer.
The sample of this study consisted of 76 gynecological cancer patients (noverca=40, nserviksca=12, nendometriumca= 24), who were treated at the oncology day treatment center between January and July 2017.
Data Collection Tools
The data of this study were collected using the Patient
Information Form, Body Image Scale (BIS), Rosenberg
Self-Esteem Scale (RSES), and Beck Depression Inventory
(BDI).
Patient Information Form
Patient Information Form consisted of the following
three parts:
In the first part, there were questions on age, marital status, educational status, occupation, employment status, income level, social insurance status, family type, people with whom the patient lives, geographical region, height/weight/BMI, age at first delivery, the number of deliveries, state of having a gynecological cancer patient within the family, menopausal status, the menopausal age, smoking and alcohol use of the gynecological cancer patients.
In the second part, characteristics like the primary diagnosis and diagnosis date of the patient, time to start treatment and chemotherapy, number of chemotherapy cures, state of receiving radiotherapy, state of having any other disease and state of undergoing any surgical operations and features of gynecological cancer and treatment were evaluated.
In the Third Part, there were questions to evaluate the psychological state of the patient such as having any psychological diseases in the past and if yes, their names and treatments received, having any psychological disease at present, the difficulties experienced during the illness, and the need for psychological support.
Body Image Scale (BIS)
BIS was developed by Secord and Jourard 1953,[17] and
it was adapted to the Turkish language by Hovardaoglu
following its reliability and validity study in 1989.[18]
The scale contains 40 items, and each item is associated
with an organ or part of the body (i.e., arm, leg, face)
or a function (i.e., level of sexual activity). Each item
is given a score ranging from 1 to 5, and there are response
options like "I like it very much" (5 points), "I
like it much (4 points), "I am indecisive" (3 points), "I
do not like it" (2 points), and "I do not like it at all" (1
point). The scale does not have a cut-off value. A total
score of 40 to 200 may be obtained from the scale, and
high scores show high satisfaction levels. This scale is
recommended to be used, especially in studies related
to depression. The Cronbach"s ? value was found to be
0.923 in this study.
Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale (RSES)
Beck Depression Inventory (BDI)
Data Analysis
RSES was developed by Morris Rosenberg in 1965.[
The original form of the scale was prepared by Beck
et al. The BDI has two versions, including one version
from 1961 [
The data were analyzed using SPSS 21.0 (Statistical
Package for Social Sciences) Package Program. The
normality of the data was tested by Shapiro-Wilk test.
The independent samples t-test and one-way ANOVA
test were used for the assessment of data. After the
variance analysis, the Tukey and tamhane"s t2 multiple
comparison tests were used to investigate the source of
difference among the groups. The Pearson correlation
analysis was used to determine the correlations between
BDI, BIS and RSES scores. A p<0.05 value was
considered to be statistically significant.
The mean BIS score of the patients was 94.02±21.90;
the mean RSES score was 11.42±4.10, and the mean
BDI score was 30.86±10.30 (Table
When body image, self-esteem and depression states of the patients were examined based on their sociodemographic and disease characteristics, it was determined that patients within 30-49-year-old group had lower self-esteem and higher depression states (p<0.05). No statistically significant difference was detected between mean BISscore and age (p>0.05). Moreover, no statistically significant differences were detected between the education, occupation, social insurance, type of cancer and time of diagnosis and their mean BIS, RSES and BDI scores (p>0.05).
When the characteristics of the patients in this study were evaluated concerning fertility and menopausal status, the findings showed that there were no statistically significant differences between the variables of age at first delivery and menopausal age and their states of body image, self-esteem and depression (p>0.05). The self-esteem of the patients, who did not experience any delivery, was found to be lower than the patients who had one or more child births (p<0.05). In addition, patients who entered menopause due to a surgical treatment had lower BIS and RSES scores and higher BDE scores than patients who entered physiological menopause (p<0.05).
In this study, women who had a current psychological illness were determined to have lower self-esteem and a higher level of depression compared to patients who did not have any psychological diseases (p<0.05). No statistically significant difference was detected between body image and the state of having a psychological illness at the moment when this study was conducted (p>0.05). When the body image, selfesteem, and depression states were examined based on the need for psychological support, it was found that the patients, who needed psychological support, had a more negative body image, had lower self-esteem but experienced more depressive symptoms compared to patients who did not (p<0.05).
There may be several factors in gynecological cancers
that may cause depression in women. It was reported
in the literature that using chemotherapeutic
agents was one of these risk factors.[
Consistent with the literature, in this study, some
of the women (31.9%) experienced psychological problems
during the treatment of disease and that more
than half of them (67.1%) was in need of psychological
support. In addition, mean BDI scores of the women,
who needed psychological support, were significantly
higher than the women who did not (p<0.05).
In the studies related with the epidemiology of depression,
it was reported that the possibility of experiencing
depression in young and middle-age groups
was higher than in the other age groups, and depression
was at its peak in women between 35-45 years old.
[
One of the factors which may affect the depression
states of gynecological cancer patients is the number of
children. In the study conducted by Gol and Asilar in
2017 with gynecological cancer patients who received
chemotherapy, higher depressive symptoms were detected
among women having no children compared to
those with 1-3 children.[
In the literature, a negative correlation was reported
between education and depression. In the study conducted
by Kayahan et al., their findings showed that
depression was highest among the patients with a low
education level, and its prevalence decreased as education
level increased.[
Another factor that may affect the rate of depression
in cancer patients, is the duration of the disease.
In the study, which was conducted by Atesciet al., it
was stated that depression scores increased as the duration
of disease increased.[
Problems regarding body image and self-esteem are
also important among the ones that are experienced by gynecological cancer patients.[
When the relationship between depression, body
image and self-esteem was considered in this study,
the findings showed that there was a very strong and
significant correlation between body image and depression
scores (r=-0.822; p<0.001); and there was a
negative, strong and significant correlation between
self-esteem and depression (r=-0.793; p<0.001). In
other words, depressive symptoms were detected at
high levels in women with a negative body image and
low self-esteem score. Similarly, Ustundaget al. reported
that there was a significant and negative correlation
between body image, self-esteem, and depression
scores in patients with gynecological cancer, and
high depression scores affected BIS and RSES scores at
a significant level.[
scores were compared to the women who entered
physiological menopause, and the difference was found
to be significant at a statistical level (p<0.05).
In this study, it was found that there were no statistically
significant differences between the mean BIS and RSES scores based on sociodemographic characteristics,
such as marital status, family structure and
living alone (p>0.05). Similar to our study, Bisselling
et al. reported in their study with 62 patients that the
characteristics of family structure did not affect BIS
scores.[
According to many women, having a healthy uterus
means that they are fertile and feminine. Fertility and
motherhood have an important place in the role given
to women by society. Gynecological cancers appear as
a threat to the femininity and fertility of women.[
There are studies in the literature showing that sociodemographic
characteristics, such as age and educational
status affect body image and self-esteem.[
When the distribution of BIS and RSES scores was
examined based on the characteristics of the disease, it
was determined that there were no statistically significant
differences between BIS and RSES scores concerning
the type of disease and time of diagnosis (p>0.05).
In the study performed by Bisselling et al., it was determined
that the clinical factors excep tthe time of diagnosis
did not affect body image.[
Study Limitations
The gynecological cancer patients were from only one
university hospital. These results cannot be generalised
to a large population.
Peer-review: Externally peer-reviewed.
Conflict of Interest: No conflict of interest was declared by the authors.
Ethics Committee Approval: This study was approved by the Research Ethics Committee (Approval number: 347 10/06/2016).
Financial Support: The authors declared that this study received no fund.
Authorship contributions: Concept - N.D., E.B.; Design - N.D., E.B.; Supervision - N.D., E.B.; Funding - N.D.; Materials - N.D.; Data collection and/or processing - N.D.; Data analysis and/or interpretation - N.D.; Literature search - N.D., E.B.; Writing - N.D., E.B.; Critical review - N.D., E.B.