The women’s medical autonomy and decision-making for receiving breast surgical treatment

• Main Authors: Chung-Yu Chang, 張鍾鈺
• Other Authors: Shuh-Jen Sheu
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2010
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/65019002917694650187

碩士 === 國立陽明大學 === 臨床暨社區護理研究所 === 98 === Aim. The purpose of this study is to explore the women’s medical autonomy and clinical decision-making while receiving breast surgical treatment. The breast tumor women’s background characteristics, their selection of surgical treatment types, and what factors would influence their preferences and difficulties in decision-making, as well as their mutual relationships will be under investigation. Method. The cross-sectional descriptive correlation study design was adopted and self-filled questionnaires including demographic data, preferences of participation in treatment decision-making, uncertainty illness scale, surgical treatment knowledge test were completed by 120 breast tumor women from a large teaching hospital in Taipei, Taiwan. Results. In our study, 54.2% breast tumor women chose breast conserving treatment, 40.8% chose modified radical mastectomy and 5% chose breast reconstruction before surgery. Age is the factor that influences breast tumor women’s selection of surgical method. The data demonstrates that 54.1% women originally preferred active role, 34.2% women selected passive role. After interacting with the surrounding environment and real situations, 58.4% women became to select active role and 26.7% women tended to play more passive role in treatment decision making.Younger and higher educational women would significantly influence their choices in decision-making role. Compared with other research, the breast tumor women in our research are more active than those in the research of domestic and overseas country due to the study design and timing for data collection were different. The factors influence women’s choices of a certain surgical treatment are as follows: 1) ”the cancer recurrent possibility”, 2) “what doctor thinks the best surgical method”, 3)“conserving the most part of breast”, and 4) “radical mastectomy can gain peace in the mind”. There are three reasons that women feel difficulty in decision making as following “lack of information regarding disease treatment”, “do not know which treatment is the best for me. Besides, it is hard to make decision”, and “lack of time to make decision”. According to the result, our research suggests that medical staff should understand the woman’s preference in decision making earlier. Moreover, medical staff should consider each woman as a unique decision-maker in order to provide appropriate information and help solving the difficulties in decision-making they encountered. Thus, the personal medical autonomy and caring quality can be improved.