Sense of Hope Alleviates Fatigue in Breast Cancer Survivors

Breast cancer is an important and escalating issue for females all over the world. Due to the improvement of medical and technological progress, the survival rate of breast cancer patient increases every year. Breast cancer survivors, after the discomforting distress from cancer treatment, will go through treatment-derived physical distress and worry about relapse. As a result the fatigue in breast cancer survivors has not been reduced after primary treatment. Feeling fatigue in a long term will bring mental illness problems ,decrease the quality of life and weaken the will to survive. A sense of hope in the face of fatigue may serve as an important driving force and enhance the survivors' will to survive. This study explores the relationship between the sense of hope and fatigue in breast cancer survivors and provides a reference for future planning improvements for breast cancer survivors experiencing fatigue.

A cross-sectional study design is adopted for this study. The study expects to collect 200 questionnaires from breast cancer survivors through medical centers treating breast cancer and breast cancer patients communities. The questionnaire includes (a) the basic demographic information (b) disease history (c) social support scale; (d) short version multiaxial fatigue syndrome scale; (e) Hearst hope scale.

Answered questionnaires will be input to spreadsheets for further statistical analysis using SPSS 19.0 statistical software packages.