Body Image of women undergoing mastectomy

Abstract

The body is now increasingly seen as object either by culture, whether by medical discourse. However, all forms by which an individual has experiences and conceptualizes his body are covered in their body image. Several factors can influence and change the body image of a person from whom you can highlight the emergence of diseases. The diagnosis of cancer still remains stigmatizing and arouses the fear of death; this disease and its treatment generate a commitment physical, emotional and social. Under the understanding that the assessment of body image in women who have undergone surgery for treatment of breast cancer should be performed more effectively by professionals in the area of health and by researchers, the goal of this study is to know the body image of women that went through mastectomy through his life story. To that end, a search of the type descriptive approach with the perspective of oral history and theoretical reference-analysis methodology was hermeneutics. Were interviewed three women accompanied by a service of physiotherapy which also responded to wide body of satisfaction. Among the topics mentioned during the interviews, these women reported the fear of death, feeling of mutilation, fear and some difficulties with situations involving the exposure of the body, but also relieved by the understanding that the disease was eliminated. The scale of satisfaction body quantify the level of body dissatisfaction submitted by each of these women, reiterating the result of the interview, however, was not efficient for this small sample.
Key-words: body image; mastectomy; breast cancer