A Descriptive Study to Assess the Level of Stress among Women with Selected Type of Cancer in Erode Cancer Centre at Erode

Background: Cancer diagnosis is a significant source of psychological stress, followed by an extended period of Stressful cancer treatment modalities. Not surprisingly, patients with a diagnosis of cancer report high psychological and emotional stress

Objectives: To assess the level of stress among women with selected type of cancer.

Design: A cross - sectional descriptive design was adopted for the study. Setting: Erode Cancer Centre, Erode Participants: 50 women fulfilling the inclusion criteria were selected by purposive sampling technique.

Methods: All participants were interviewed a questionnaire to complete; questions were related to Baseline Proforma of women and Rating scale on The Impact of Event Scale (IES) and participants were given 20 minutes to complete the questionnaire.

Results: The findings revealed that the stress among women with breast cancer shows that, majority (70%) of the samples had severe stress, and 30% of them had moderate stress, whereas women with cervical cancer 10 % were had mild stress, 30 % were had moderate stress and 60 % were had severe stress. It shows that breast cancer patients had more stress compared to cervical cancer patients. There was a significant association between the stress scores and variables like age and stages of cancer.

Conclusion: Stress is more among cancer patients. Maximum patient do not seek medical advice and adopt self-treat for themselves.