Marital status, marital satisfaction, and support processes among women at high risk for breast cancer.

This study explored marital status, social support processes, and psychological distress among women at high risk for breast and ovarian cancer who were anticipating genetic testing. In addition to substantive findings, it presents a means of using nonsense coding (J. Cohen & P. Cohen, 1983) to include unmarried persons in regression analyses examining the importance of marital support. These women had mobilized high levels of social support. Married and unmarried women did not differ in distress, but women had to have more satisfying marriages than average to be equivalent to unmarried women. For the married women, husbands were more involved and more influential in decision making than female relatives, even in distressed marriages. Negativity from close relationships, particularly the spouse, had more influence on these women's well-being than did positive involvement. The authors' findings suggest that counseling and education programs need to accommodate the key role that husbands have in decision making concerning genetic testing for risk of breast cancer. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)