Marital adjustment, depression and quality of life of women with breast cancer and their intimate partners.

Purpose: Among all the types of cancer, breast cancer occurs most frequently in women. The diagnosis and treatments for this disease generate physical and emotional discomfort that affects the quality of life of both the woman and her intimate partners.

Aim: The aim was to establish the relationship between marital adjustment, depression and quality of life of both women with breast cancer and their intimate partners.

Methods: A cross-sectional study with 143 couples composed of women diagnosed with breast cancer and their respective intimate partners, living in Colombia and Italy, were evaluated about Sociodemographic characteristics, marital adjustment, depression, and quality of life. Measures of central tendency, correlational coefficients and both simple and multiple regression analysis were applied.

Results: Significant correlations were reported for the variable marital adjustment (t: 0.35; p < 0.001) and depression (t:0.49; p < 0.001) between women and their intimate partners in Colombia, while the variables depression (t: 0.77; p < 0.001) and quality of life (t: 0.50; p < 0.001) showed significant correlations between couples in Italy. Regarding the multiple regression model, it was found that the quality of life of the couples was not affected by the behavior observed in the variable depression and marital adjustment. However, when including the variable country of origin (Colombia and Italy), a significant effect on quality of life was observed (t = -2.126; p < 0.034).

Conclusions: The quality of life of the woman and her intimate partner was related to the country where they live, a variable that is related to the timeliness and quality of health services. This result invites all professionals who care for this group of women to offer the best possible care by optimizing the resources available.