(PS2-22) Rumination and Recovery: Does Breast Cancer Surgery Impact the Relationship Between Partner Social Support and Anxious Attachment in Women with Breast Cancer?

Abstract Text:

Background: Women with breast cancer (BC) often identify their romantic partners as key sources of social support as they undergo treatment. Previous research indicates that partner social support is associated with a myriad of positive psychosocial outcomes. However, during BC surgery recovery and the onset of adjuvant treatment, receiving partner social support may also lead to anxiety about the sustainability of their partner’s support and fears of abandonment. In this study, we examined how two types of social support (i.e., emotional, instrumental) are related to patient anxious attachment to their partner, and assessed whether BC surgery type (i.e., mastectomy vs lumpectomy) moderates this relationship.


Methods: A psychosocial randomized controlled trial recruited women (N=174) with newly diagnosed BC (Stage 0-III) after BC surgery and before adjuvant therapy. Participants completed measures on social support (Sources of Social Support Scale) and their attachment qualities (Measure of Attachment Qualities) during the baseline assessment. Linear regression models were used to analyze the moderating effect of BC surgery type on the relationship between partner social support and worry-related anxious attachment, adjusting for age, days since surgery, and BC stage.

Results: Greater emotional (β = 0.30; SE = 0.05; p < .001) and instrumental partner social support (β = 0.33; SE = 0.09; p < .001) were both significantly associated with greater worry-related anxious attachment. Further, the interaction between emotional partner social support and surgery type was significant in predicting worry-related anxious attachment (β = -0.15; SE = 0.06; p = .018), such that the relationship between emotional partner social support and worry-related anxious attachment was stronger among women who received lumpectomies. The interaction between instrumental partner social support and surgery type was not significant in predicting worry-related anxious attachment.

Conclusions: These findings suggest that BC patients who receive emotional and instrumental partner social support experience more worry-related anxious attachment to their partner, potentially for fear that the social support is temporary. Moreover, women who receive greater emotional partner social support and underwent a lumpectomy experience greater worry-related anxious attachment. These results suggest that lumpectomies, which only remove the main cancerous tumor, may increase uncertainty about future treatment needs and raise concerns for partner support fatigue during that time. Increasing understanding of the needs of BC patients with lumpectomies may help to improve cognitive-behavioral stress management strategies and mitigate worry-related anxious attachment.