Paper
Friday, 21 July 2006
This presentation is part of : Women and Family Issues & Strategies
The Decision Making for Medical–Seeking Women with Suspected Breast Cancer After Examination in Taiwan
Su Ying Fang, MS, RN, Institute of Allied Health Sciences, College of Medicine, National Chung Kung University, Tainan, Taiwan, Tainan, Taiwan and Bih-Ching Shu, PhD, RN, Department of Nursing and Institute of Allied Health Sciences, College of Medicine, National Cheng Kung University, Taiwan, Tainan, Taiwan.
Learning Objective #1: understand the considerations of decision making for medical–seeking of women with suspected breast cancer after examination.
Learning Objective #2: compare the differences between East and West culture about the women's experiences of medical-seeking behavior when they were suspected with breast cancer.
The purpose of this study was to explore the process of decision making for medical-seeking of women with suspected breast cancer after examination. Three women who had undergone surgery (including both modified radical mastectomies and lumpectomies, with some having reconstruction) because of breast cancer were interviewed in this study. They reviewed about their experiences of decision making for medical seeking. Each participant was interviewed one to two times. Then, one focus group was hold. Seven women with breast cancer participated in the focus group to discuss their decision making experience of medical-seeking. All these ten women were willing to attend this study and informed consent. Content analysis was used to obtain a deeper understanding of the participants' experiences about what influenced their decision to follow-up to receive the certain diagnosis. The themes about decision making for medical-seeking from these women descriptions were emerged: (a) the perception about disease (awareness or sensibility of the severity of breast cancer symptom, the coping of disease, the attitude of cancer treatment, and the evaluation of cancer treatment); (b) the perception about body (how their bodies under control, how they identifying their body, and how their body respected) and (c) the perception about life (how the life handled and what the responsibility of their life). The medical decision making of women with breast cancer encompasses a wide range of responses and reflects their own culture background and value system. The findings can help health workers to gain a better understanding that women with breast cancer how to make their medical decisions in Taiwan.

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