Body Image and Self-Esteem in Women with Breast Cancer at the José Carrasco Arteaga Specialty Hospital, Ecuador

Introduction: Breast cancer is the most prevalent neoplasm in women worldwide and nationally, so there is a need to investigate the changes that are generated in the life of the cancer patient at the physical, psychological and social levels. Objective: Determining body image and self-esteem in women with breast cancer treated at the "José Carrasco Arteaga"Specialty Hospital, Cuenca 2022 -2023. Methodology: A quantitative study, cross-sectional analytical design was carried out with a sample of 141 women with breast cancer treated at the "José Carrasco Arteaga" Specialty Hospital. A direct interview was carried out with the participants of the study applying a questionnaire with sociodemographic and clinical data elaborated by the authors, the Hopwood Body Image scale and the Rosenberg Self –Esteem scale. The analysis was performed with the SPSS v24.0 program using descriptive and inferential statistics, considering statistically significant results at p<0.05 values. Results: Of the study participants, 70.9% have a high body image disturbance and 17.7% have a low degree of self-esteem. In addition, a statistically significant association is identified between body image disturbance and the sociodemographic variables, age (p-value=0.000), marital status (p-value=0.039), and employment status (value= 0.011). Similarly, there is a significant Association between self-esteem and type of treatment with a p-value = 0.048. Conclusion: In the study a dissatisfaction with body image is evident in most women, however, they presented a high degree of self -esteem.