Psychosocial factors in adjuvant hormone therapy for breast cancer: an emerging context for adherence research

Purpose For patients with hormone receptor positive breast cancer, survivorship entails prolonged self-management of adjuvant treatment in the form of daily hormone therapy. Although sustained daily adherence across the 5-year course of therapy is associated with improved recurrence-free survival outcomes, adherence is suboptimal and many women discontinue hormone therapy prematurely. Factors associated with breast cancer survivors’ nonadherence and nonpersistence are not comprehensively understood. Furthermore, psychosocial variables have only received limited research attention, despite their documented relationships with adherence in other chronic illness populations.