Is the link between posttraumatic growth and anxious symptoms mediated by marital intimacy in breast cancer patients?

This study aimed to determine whether marital intimacy mediates the association between posttraumatic growth (PTG) and anxious symptoms in women who had recently completed breast cancer treatments and breast cancer survivors.

Forty-eight patients who had completed their treatment six months prior to the study and 46 disease-free survivors who had completed their treatments at least one year prior to the study completed the Posttraumatic Growth Inventory, the Personal Assessment of Intimacy Scale, and the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale.

Recently off-treatment patients reported higher levels of intimacy than survivors did. Path analyses showed that higher levels of the Appreciation of Life dimension of PTG were associated with less anxious symptoms through higher levels of marital intimacy. The type of group did not moderate these associations.

Regardless of the disease phase, the experience of positive changes after breast cancer in terms of an enhanced appreciation of life seems to be associated with an increased perception of intimacy in the context of a dyadic relationship, which, in turn, is associated with less anxiety.