[Psychological investigations on patients with breast carcinoma (A pilot study)]

A pilot study was undertaken on patients with breast carcinoma to establish guidelines for improvements in patient care and health education. Of 113 patients who were asked to attend for examination after they had completed ray therapy only 40 turned up. After a half hour exploration the patients were asked to fill in the following: a complaints inventory questionnaire according to Hess; the Raven's progressive matrices; the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory; the 16-PF of Cattell et al., and a questionnaire regarding attitudes to the illness. The connections between fear and length of delay were discussed. It appears possible to distinguish neurotic from non-neurotic patients with carcinoma. A few working hypotheses were developed which could be tested on a larger number of patients.