Meaning in Life and Pain among Breast Cancer Patients

Breast cancer is not only a serious physical disease, but it is often an emotionally draining disease as well. Pain has an overwhelming effect on the quality of life of a person. . Pain often involves all aspects of a person's life including physical, psychological and emotional state; disrupting daily activities, work, finances, social, marital and family life and relationships (Marcus, 2000). The present paper aims at studying the impact of meaning in life on the intensity of pain among breast cancer patients. The present study is co-relational in nature. The sample for the study was 100 breast cancer patients of stage II and III undergoing treatment. The Indian adaptation of Meaning in Life scale (Warner&Williams, 1987) and West Haven Yale Multidimensional Pain Inventory (Kerns, Turk and Rudy, 1985) was used. Results showed that respondents have above average level of pain and below average level of meaning in life. The co-relational analysis depicts a negative correlation of meaning in life and pain. Sub-group analysis will be done to compare the pain of respondents having high and low meaning in life. The findings suggest that meaning may be an important mechanism in adjustment to higher level of pain caused by cancer. Therefore there is a need for developing a suitable intervention program for the enhancement of meaning in life so that the pain can be managed by breast cancer patients.