title: Husbands' perceptions of wives' adjustment to breast cancer: the impact on wives' mood.
abstract: Married women's adjustment to breast cancer is positively influenced by their husbands' emotional support and by both spouses' active coping strategies. However, little is known about how women's adjustment is related to their husbands' perceptions of their psychosocial impairment. The current study examined the relationships among wives' coping strategies, the extent of congruence between wives' and husbands' perceptions of wives' adjustment, and wives' mood disturbance in 45 women with Stage I or II breast cancer and their husbands. Mediational analyses demonstrated that discrepancies between husbands' perceptions of wives' adjustment and wives' perceptions of their own adjustment mediated the relationship between wives' use of avoidant coping strategies and wives' mood disturbance. The findings suggest that husbands' over- or under-estimation of wives' adjustment may have a negative impact on wives' mood. Implications for future research are discussed.
authors.affiliation: Baylor College of Medicine, Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Houston, TX, USA. romeroc@bcm.edu
authors.forename: Catherine
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Romero
authors.forename: Julie E
authors.initials: JE
authors.lastname: Lindsay
authors.forename: William T
authors.initials: WT
authors.lastname: Dalton
authors.forename: David V
authors.initials: DV
authors.lastname: Nelson
authors.forename: Lois C
authors.initials: LC
authors.lastname: Friedman
mesh_terms: D000223:Adaptation, Psychological; D000339:Affect; D001943:Breast Neoplasms / Q000523:psychology*; D004924:Escape Reaction; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D012938:Social Perception; D018454:Spouses; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires