While women seem to get a lot of comfort from support groups for a host of conditions and problems, men apparently react differently. At least when it comes to coping with a partner's breast cancer, the guys prefer sports or hanging out with their buddies and talking about anything but the breast cancer diagnosis. That's the finding of a Canadian study published in Oncology Nursing Forum.
In a journal news release, lead author Wendy Duggleby, endowed nursing research chairwoman in aging and quality of life at the University of Alberta, was quoted as saying,
"There are many programs out there for women, but for men a lot of support mechanisms are support groups, and it was very clear from the participants in our study that's not what they wanted. What these spouses needed was help finding ways to do things for themselves to help reduce their stress."
Duggleby, who has a web site for her Living with Hope Research Program, stressed that "If their husbands lose hope, the wives are really, really worried about them and they often lose hope themselves. For women with breast cancer, it actually helps with their own quality of life if we can do something to help the men. It's very interconnected."
