Breast cancer survivors’ recollection of their illness and therapy seven years after enrolment into a randomised controlled clinical trial

Table 5 Physicians’ estimates of patients’ most frequent answers (n = 25)

	Physicians’responses		Patients’ responses
Worst experience	Mean	%	%^a
Cancer diagnosis	1.8	60	18
Chemotherapy	2.5	24	25
Psychological distress	2.9	16	38
Social burden	3.4	-	7
Mastectomy	4.1	-	8
Positive aspects	Mean	%	%^a
Change in life priorities	2.1	52	50
Social support	2.5	24	22
Good course of cancer	3.0	16	16
Gratitude	3.2	8	9
Support by physicians	4.1	-	10
Advice	Mean	%	%^a
Fighting spirit	2.2	44	42
Openness	2.3	28	9
Information	2.8	21	16
Confidence in physicians/ nurses	3.3	8	11
Business as usual	4.1	4	7

^apercentages based on raw counts of patients’ most frequent answers (multiple answers were possible, see Table 3); Mean = mean of ranks on a scale of 1–5; %: percentage of physicians rating the category as “most frequent answer” (response category “1” on a scale of 1–5)

ISSN: 1471-2407