Psychological characteristics of breast cancer patients

Two breast cancer groups (mastectomised or chemotherapeutic intervention) and a control group of healthy female nurses were given a demographic questionnaire and the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory. The personality profiles of all three groups emerged as significantly different from each other on all scales with the exception of social introversion and psychopathic deviance. Both cancer groups displayed inflated scores on the clinical scale Depression. A separate series of univariate F tests revealed that the mastectomised patients were characterised by elevated scores on the clinical scales Hypochondriasis, Depression, Hysteria, Masculinity-Femininity and Schizophrenia compared to normals. The discriminant analysis confirmed that between the clinical groups the mastectomised patients exhibited higher scores (compared to those receiving chemotherapy) along the scales Hypochondriasis, Paranoia, Psychaesthenia, Schizophrenia and Hypomania, the latter 4 scales constituting the psychotic tetrad.