Processo adaptativo da familia frente a mastectomia

Abstract

he mastectomy represents a real threat to the woman's self -esteem, altering her daily life and provoking changes that can be of physical, social and emotional order, not just affecting the woman, but also causing conflicts in her family. We aimed to identify stimulus that happen in the mastectomized woman's family context as surgery consequences and to know her relatives' behaviors when facing these stimulus, presented as acting roles and interdependence. The study has a descriptive type and was developed in a specialized Oncological institution, located in Fortaleza - CE, with 15 families of mastectomized women identified in an initial contact with these patients. The data were collected through visits, using a route for data collection and having Roy's Adaptation theory as a referential. The interviews had a semi - structured type. The data were organized based on the analysis content. After the disease's discovery and the surgery news, fear was referred by the relatives, generating impact in the family and in the closest friends. The behaviors observed at that moment contributed in a negative way to the family's balance, being, like this, considered ineffective. The love feelings and affection reflected the woman's meaning given by her relatives, without important alterations after the mastectomy, what demonstrates an adaptative behavior. Among the changes in the woman's life and in her family context carted by the mastectomy and by the mamma cancer diagnosis, there were alterations in several family members roles, as consequences of the incidental reductions that the woman did in her role, as an adaptation form to her new condition. Those alterations were as much of physical order, as emotional and social -economical. The most important changes included those ones related to professional activities or domesticai tasks. The behaviors manifested by the relatives were constituted mainly by adaptative behaviors, contributing to the maintenance of the family integrity. The observed family union helped the problem confrontation, making the family's relationships growth possible. We concluded that the family, as well as the mastectomized woman, is in the same way affected during the whole disease's process and treatment, being necessary the health team to give some attention to the family in order to include it in the planning of our actions. The adaptation model is valid, once it offers a better vision concerning the situation and behaviors of relatives based on the concepts of the worked theory.