The relationship between family support and self-esteem among cervical cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy

The main management of advanced cervical cancer is chemotherapy. The side effects of chemotherapy include changes in the patient’s biology and the psychological impact on the patient through a decline in self-esteem. The factor that can affect the self-esteem of cervical cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy includes family support. This study aims to determine the relationship between family support and self-esteem in cervical cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy. The design was an analytical correlation with a cross-sectional approach. The population in this study was patients with stage IIB cervical cancer which consisted of 47 respondents recruited using the purposive sampling technique. The data was collected by a questionnaire. The results showed that 59.6% had good family support and 59.6% had high self-esteem. This was analyzed using the Spearman rank test with a significance level of 5 (0.05). We obtained a correlation coefficient (r) between family support and patient self-esteem that was 0.982 with a p-vaue of p=0.000. This means that there was a very strong relationship, namely the better family support given to the cervical cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy, the higher the self-esteem of the cervical cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy at Dr. Soetomo General Hospital Surabaya. Family support is very necessary to give to the cervical cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy to improve the patient’s self-esteem in terms of accepting their condition.