Focus on the psychological aspects of breast cancer

  With the rapid changes in science and technology, people’s living standards are improving day by day. Medicine has also changed from the traditional “biomedical model” to the “biopsychosocial model”. Therefore, the influence of psychological factors on the occurrence and regression of malignant tumors has received more and more attention from the medical profession. In recent years, with the increasing incidence of breast cancer, the psychological problems of breast cancer are becoming the focus of attention.  When it comes to malignant tumors, people are often afraid of cancer and think that cancer is an incurable disease, and the treatment of breast cancer often results in the destruction of female sex organs. Because breast cancer is often found in patients before and after menopause, they are emotionally unstable at this time, and will show signs of menopause syndrome such as impatience and irritability, and restlessness. The survey shows that depression and anxiety are significantly higher in breast cancer patients than in other cancers, and at least 25% of postoperative breast cancer patients are depressed, even up to 80%. In addition, because women are more aware of their own health and rich in emotions, many of them have more or less anxiety and depression once they have breast cancer.  More seriously, patients with depression have a higher risk of suicide, self-injury and even killing their loved ones. 2/3 of patients with depression have had suicidal thoughts and behaviors, and 15%-25% of depressed patients eventually succeed in committing suicide. Psychological disorders are characterized by high morbidity, recurrence and disability, and the consequence is a heavy economic burden. Therefore, it is of great significance to human society and families to actively prevent and treat postoperative breast cancer patients’ psychological disorders, to free postoperative breast cancer patients from psychological disorders, and to improve patients’ quality of life.  According to Chinese medicine, human emotion and disease are closely related. For example, Zhang Jinyue, a famous doctor in Ming Dynasty, clearly stated that “depression is caused by illness and disease is caused by depression”. The development and recurrence of breast cancer is the result of multiple factors, and the contemporary medical model believes that individual biological factors and external social factors must pass through the individual’s psychological response in order to play a role in human health or disease. Adverse emotions not only reduce the quality of life of breast cancer patients, but also promote the recurrence and metastasis of breast cancer. Therefore, it is extremely important to care for breast cancer patients and actively give psychological treatment.