Learning Objective #1: Recognize how prostate cancer treatment outcomes affect the patient and his partner differently across the aging lifespan

Learning Objective #2: Understand how findings of this study apply to their practice

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Although prostate cancer is prevalent, little information is available on how it affects patients' and partners' quality of life according to their developmental stage. The purpose of this study was twofold: 1) to determine if the quality of life of men with prostate cancer and their partners differs according to developmental stage: 50-64, 65-74, and 75 and above, and 2) to determine if patients' and partners' self-efficacy, current stressors, symptom distress and appraisal of illness differs according to developmental stage. McCubbin and McCubbin's Family Stress, Adjustment, and Adaptation Framework (1993) guided this study; it focuses on the additive effect of normative (developmental stage) and non-normative stressors (illness) on the couple's ability to adapt. A mixed design was used. Qualitative interviews of 15 couples explored the couples' perspectives. A descriptive design compared secondary data obtained from 69 patients and their partners. ANOVA and MANOVA were used to determine differences among age groups. Findings in the younger group (50-64) indicated that the inability to reach goals contributed to higher levels of psychological distress. Patients in the middle group (65-74) had a better physical and mental QOL and higher self-efficacy than the younger group; they also had less negative appraisal of illness than the other age groups. Couples in the middle group (65-74) expressed less the distress associated with a diagnosis of prostate cancer. Partners in the middle group perceived less bother with hormonal symptoms than the other groups. Partners in the youngest age group reported the most disturbances with sexual changes in their husbands. Couples in the oldest group (75+) felt treatment was difficult and fatiguing. The study provided some evidence that treatment for prostate cancer affect aging men and their partners differently across the aging life span. Implications suggest that interventions may need to be tailored to couples' developmental stage.