Psychiatric aspects of breast cancer.

1Psychological factors play an important role in patients’ compliance with medical treatment, in their reaction to the diagnosis, and in their ability to maintain an acceptable quality of life. Psychiatrists are increasingly asked to participate in the care of cancer patients and can benefit from understanding the disease and its treatment. This paper will discuss the scope of the problem, risk factors, psychological reactions, and appropriate psychiatric interventions during different stages of the disease. In the United States breast cancer accounts for 30% of all new malignancies in women. 2 Each year, some 183,000 American women are diagnosed with the disease and nearly 41,000 die of it. 3 Caucasian women have a 13.1% and black