Family crises of breast cancer patients

Document Type : Original Article

Abstract

Families face crises from their early foundation till their last stages. Family 
crises are considered some of the special traits that families face have 
increased whether these crises from internal factors or from external one; 
families are disabled to face them. The element of the thesis have been 
divided into three essential axis's as follows: The First Axis: Defining 
crisis and its creation, dimension, stages, characteristics, symptoms, 
sources and the techniques used to deal with it. A crisis is defined as a 
human phenomenon and a part of life textile which arises at any moment 
and under sudden circumstances that creates a kind of threat to a person 
which must be dealt with to put an end to it.
A crisis arises when warnings and signals which appear before a crisis are 
ignored. A crisis is characterized by many dimensions ; such as the time 
dimension which specifies when a crisis has started and the predictions of 
its continuity to be able to find suggestions to put an end it.
- The objective dimension which clarifies whether the crisis is social, 
economical or political.
- The impact dimension and getting to know the direct and indirect 
impact of a crisis.
- The place dimension in which we specify the place where the crisis 
has taken place.
- The human dimension which includes specifying the people that the 
crisis include.
As for the crisis stages, it passes by many stages such as: the shock 
dimension and protest and breaking down and finally overcoming it.As for the crisis characteristics, it is characterized by the sudden factor and 
complexity and lack of information which prevent the person from 
specifying the right direction that he takes to solve the crisis.and feeling 
tired and disable and worried and disturbance in the family relations and 
social activities are symptoms of a crisis.
As for the sources of crises, they can be specified in the shallow 
information and incorrect information and misevaluation and disvalue and 
false interpretation of matters and stresses which people face and also 
weakness of leadership skills and solidarity and repetition in performance 
and unclearness of objectives.
Crisis can be dealt with whether by using traditional techniques such as 
crisis escape or by jumping over crisis by pretending that a crisis has been 
overcome or dealing with it using modern scientific techniques in facing 
the crisis dimension and its danger and specifying the stage which the crisis 
has reached and the factual interference to face it. 
The second axis: Getting to know the family and its functions and 
classification; so we defined family as a small group which has social roles 
such as (husband – father – mother – son - daughter)it is usually as a result 
of the marriage of a man and a woman and it is supposed to have children, 
parents bear their responsibility.
Families have been classified into extended families which include two or 
more generations and small families which includes a father and a mother 
and unmarried children.
Families may face crises that can be managed and overcome after 
appointing the objectives and arranging priorities and the initiative of 
solving the crisis and flexibility and bearing responsibility.
The Third axis: The family crises nature of cancer breast patients such as 
(social crises – psychological crises – economical crises – health crises) 
cancer breast patient are exposed to mix of crises since the beginning of 
discovering the disease passing by the different stage of cure, so they face 
social crises as in the turbulence of everyday life and malady in marriage 
relations and divorce and abandonment and anger and wife extreme 
nervousness at nonsense and turbulences among family members as a result 
of extreme exhaust and nervous effort and long-time diseases and children 
life turbulence and prevailing chaos in the family as a whole. One of the 
psychological crises that patients are exposed to is when they have extreme 
grief and fear of death and pain and worry and depression and being unable 
to believe what has happened, and the status of the patient gets worse when 
a husband mistreats her and not accepting the changes that happened to her 
and neglecting her, so patients must be helped psychological to overcome 
these psychological crises either by the psychological specialists or by 
family and friends support. As for the economical crises, they are

exemplified in the extreme expenses of cure that families bear and finally 
the health crises that appear in all stages of cure passing by surgery and its 
pain and then the appearance of side effects of medicine that appear in 
tiredness and pain in muscles and vomiting and mouth ulcer and hair loss 
and early menopause and nail and skin changes.
As a result of facing all of these crises affects the family greatly because of 
the patient’s disability of bearing all of these symptoms, so she depends 
mainly on others to help her with her responsibilities and family duties 
which makes her feel falling short of duty.

LINDA M. GORMAN, The Psychosocial Impact of Cancer on the 
Individual, Family, and Society (cancer Reserch and Treatment), Volume 
54 (3), Korean Cancer Association, sep.2013.