Psychosocial consequences of mastectomy: levels of morbidity and associated factors.

Psychosocial morbidity was examined in 90 consecutive patients with Stage I or II breast cancer aged under 70 treated by mastectomy. In the two years after surgery, the prevalences of depression and anxiety of clinical degree were generally under 10%--less than half of those reported in early controlled studies in the United Kingdom. However, cancer patients aged under 50 showed significantly higher prevalences compared with cancer patients aged 50 or above and compared with matched control subjects with benign breast disease. Social and work problems were common at all ages. Sexual problems were more severe than mood disturbance. Patients at risk of mood disturbance could be predicted by a combination of age, measures of emotional lability and whether or not they were receiving chemotherapy. The results of this study are consistent with those of other recent reports from the United Kingdom and United States, which show that following mastectomy, mood disturbance of clinical degree may be considerably less common than has previously been supposed.