Receiving news of a family BRCA1/2 mutation: Messages of fear and empowerment

This manuscript style dissertation is composed of three documents. The first manuscript is a state of the science paper on psychosocial considerations of adults with hereditary breast and ovarian cancer syndrome (HBOC). The literature in this review integrated studies of individuals with a BRCA1/2 mutation including persons with and without cancer. This manuscript was published in the Journal of Cancer Survivorship (Crotser & Boehmke, 2009) and revealed a concern about distress in communicating genetic test results to family members. As a result of this review, a second literature review of studies on communication of breast cancer genetic test results in families was pursued. This review identified a gap in the current state of the science as no studies were identified which explored the perspective of recipients of the news of a family BRCA1/2 mutation. Based on findings of the communication literature review, a preliminary study was conducted of the perspectives of recipients of genetic test results from family members in a sample of women using an internet based support network. A second manuscript describing the findings of a pilot study conducted is scheduled for publication in the Oncology Nursing Forum in November of 2010. The dissertation culminates in a third manuscript reporting the findings of the dissertation study with the aim of publishing in a journal with an audience interested in cancer genetics, qualitative health research and/or cancer nursing.