[Psychosocial factors of preserving health? Prospective studies of breast cancer, bronchial cancer and fibrocystic mastopathy].

Do psychosocial factors affect the development of health? 156 patients were interviewed and tested before a breast biopsy or before the initial medical treatment of lung cancer. Multiple regressions examined the influence of age, diagnosis (tumor stage) and different psychosocial parameters as dependent variables the development of health after 2 or 5 years as independent variables. The breastbiopsy-group (n = 52) shows five psychological variables being effective in a positive (health promoting) manner: autonomy, emotional outlet, expression of one's needs, family support, lack of life stress. In lung cancer (n = 104) the development of health 2 years after diagnosis is only influenced by the type of tumor (small cell versus non small cell) and by the initial tumor stage. A structuralequation model (LISREL) shows for the first 3 months of illness that almost exclusively biological variables have an influence on psychological variables. Despite this family dynamics had a moderate effect on the patient's general wellbeing (Karnoffsky-Index).