Determination of the level of psychological resilience-and encounter with the stressful life events before diag-nosis of patients diagnosed with breast cancer

The study has been done as a descriptive design with the aim of determining the level of psycological resilience and stresful life events of the patients diagnosed with breast cancer before diagnosis. The study has been carried out with 201 patients diagnosed with breast cancer in Adana Numune Education and Research Hospital and Çukurova University Hospital between the date of February 2012-June 2013. The data on it was collected by ''Personel Information Form'', ''Stressful Life Events Form'' and ''Resilience Scale for Adults''. Number and percantage distribution, mean and standart deviation, independent t-test and Mann-Whitney U test was used for evaluation of data. %97 of the patiens was women and their mean age is 49.4±10.6. When the asked their stressful life events before diagnosis, almost entire of them experienced serious ilnesses, %70 of them had financial problems, %64.2 of them had the eartquake experience, %57.7 of them lost one of family members, %54.2 of them said that their relatives had serious ilnesses, %51.2 of them said that their husband lost his job, %42.8 of them said that they had problems in the marriage relationship. The rates of %30.8 of the patients being abortion, %29.9 of the patients being exposed to verbal violence, %22.4 of the patients having sexual problems, %20.4 of the patients' saying that they were beaten by their partners are the other stress life events which can't be regarded. The total average point of the Resilience Scale for Adults applied to patients has been found 123.68±17.45 and social adequancy subscale of the scale has been determined the highest. Future perception subscale of it has been determined the lowest. The psychological resilience of the patients who didn't declare their stressful life events, who said that their illnesses weren't obstacle to perform their responsibilities, who wanted the recover come back their previous life, who had supporting resource and who didn't have the idea of suicide have been found high. It has been known that psychological resilience has an important role for managing with the stressful life events and the stress has a negative effect occuring cancer illness which threatens the life and its developing. According to this, the education coping with stress and icreasing psychological resilience are suggested. Keywords: Breast cancer, stressful life events, psychological resilience