Background
Early diagnosis combined with improved breast cancer treatments has increased the lifespan of most patients (up to 85%) to more than 10 years from the time of diagnosis. This percentage concerns survivors aged from 45 to 54 years, who are in their working prime, therefore cancer diagnosis has an effect on employment. Many cancer survivors experience problems with employment and discrimination in social activities due solely to having cancer. A cohort study of France cancer patients found that 35% lost their jobs within two years of a cancer diagnosis. However, few French studies of public attitudes towards cancer survivors returning to work based on psycho-social factors have been conducted. Thus, we aimed to study the social representation of breast cancer and women in remission of breast cancer according to two mediators factors namely 1) personal involvement to breast cancer and 2) workplace spirituality.
Methods
This study involved several preliminary steps before its implementation. The first phase aimed to validate the French adaptation of the “Workplace spirituality” scale. Exploratory and confirmatory analyzes were carried out on all data collected from 623 participants working in France. The results revealed a five-factor solution : “Transcendence”, “Alignment with the organization values”, “Mindfulness”, “Compassion” and “Meaningful work” , as well as satisfactory psychometric qualities (Abdel Halim, Ameline & Roussiau, 2019). The second phase was intended to pre-test “personal involvement to breast cancer” tool on 65 participants. The results revealed a two-factor solution : the first factor included three sub-dimensions namely : valorisation, identification and perceived control. The second factor group the items that refer to the level of perceived knowledge about breast cancer.
The third phase concerns the social representation study according to two independent variables “ personal involvement to breast cancer” and “workplace spirituality”. This study was conducted on a sample of 164 French professional persons.
Results :
The study suggests that the influence of both workplace spirituality and the personal involvement to breast cancer on social representation of “breast cancer” and “women in remission of breast cancer” is significant. Results show that the attitudes found in the different experimental condition are rather positive and no term reveals any discrimination contrary to what was shown in the theoretical part. More precisely, in the group with a high score on workplace spirituality, we found a lot of terms that refer to organizational citizenship behaviors such as “altruism” and “courtesy”. In the group with a high score on personal involvement, we found a lot of terms that refer to the cancer experience as “chemotherapy” and “pain”. However, the terms that refer to the social representation of breast cancer are rather negative regardless of the experimental group, even if we find a less negative valence in the group with a high score on workplace spirituality.
Conclusion
This research work has thus been able to respond to a twofold objective: first, to explore the literature on the social representation of cancer and its impact on socio professional disinsertion. On the other hand, to bring from an empirical analysis, a better understanding of the phenomena that are played out between the Ego (the patient), the Object (the cancer) and the Alter (the entourage).
Key words : breast cancer; return to work; social representation, personal involvement; workplace spirituality.
Learned words :
Organizational citizenship behaviors : comportements de citoyenneté organisationnelle
Personal involvement : implication personnelle
References :
Abdel Halim, L., Ameline, A., & Roussiau, N. (in press). Adaptation et validation francophone d’une échelle de la spiritualité au travail. Psychologie du travail et des organisations (2019). doi :10.1016/j.pto.2019.11.001
Hoving, J. L., Broekhuizen, M. L., & Frings-Dresen, M. H. W. (2009). Return to work of breast cancer survivors: a systematic review of intervention studies. BMC cancer, 9(1), 117.