ABSTRACT
Subjects (N = 202) read one of four descriptions of a seriously ill woman and then completed the Profile of Mood States (POMS) as they thought she would complete it. The four descriptions were identical except that the patient was described alternately as having breast cancer, lung cancer, heart attack, or severe burns over her chest area. Data were analyzed in terms of perceiver gender and patient diagnosis. Women respondents perceived the patient as more angry or hostile and as having more total mood disturbance than men respondents. Breast cancer patients were perceived as more confused or bewildered than lung cancer patients. Cancer patients were generally perceived as more fatigued and confused than noncancer patients. Results are discussed in terms of their utility to health caregivers, who need to be aware that such biases may possibly exist in the patients themselves and in their support networks, and they may ultimately be detrimental to the patient's recovery.
Subject(s)
Attitude , Gender Identity , Neoplasms/psychology , Stereotyping , Students/psychology , Evaluation Studies as Topic , Female , Humans , Male , Psychology/education , UniversitiesABSTRACT
Physicians, psychologists, and nurses read one of four vignettes describing a woman who had received one of four diagnoses--breast cancer, lung cancer, heart attack, or severe burn--and indicated on the Profile of Mood States (McNair, Lorr, & Droppleman, 1971) how they perceived the woman had been feeling during the past week. They then answered 10 questions about the woman's recovery and about their own anticipated behaviors while interacting with her. A number of differences emerged between professional groups in terms of their expectations for patients regardless of diagnosis. In addition, respondents held different emotional expectations for the patient, based solely on her diagnosis. These results support the need for training health care professionals to recognize psychological distress in, and appropriately refer, seriously ill women.
Subject(s)
Attitude of Health Personnel , Neoplasms/psychology , Social Perception , Adaptation, Psychological , Adult , Affect , Female , Humans , Male , Mississippi , Nurses/psychology , Physicians/psychology , Psychology, Clinical , Surveys and Questionnaires , TennesseeABSTRACT
Participants (N = 207) read one of three descriptions of mastectomy patients and then completed the Profile of Mood States (POMS) as they thought the patient would. The three descriptions were identical except for the type of relationship that the participant was asked to imagine having with the patient. A series of one-way ANOVAs indicated that people responded differently to 5 of the 6 POMS factors and the overall Index of Mood Disturbance depending upon the relationship they were asked to imagine that they had with the patient. These differences were significant. Newman-Keuls tests demonstrated the same pattern of results for each factor--those who imagined that the patient was their mother rated her as experiencing less mood disturbance than did those who imagined that she was a woman they worked with or a well-known public figure. These results suggest that people are able to recognize psychological symptoms associated with breast cancer and mastectomy but may have difficulty perceiving these symptoms in their own mothers.