Endometrial cancer is the gynecological cancer with the highest incident rate in Taiwan. Compared with other types of gynecological cancers, women generally do not have sufficient information about, and thus pay less attention to, endometrial cancer. For endometrial cancer, early diagnosis is important to achieving a high rate of survival. However, endometrial cancer has negative effects due to insufficient information, leading to women having an unrealistic illness representation that influences their coping behaviors and disease outcomes. Leventhal's self-regulation model indicates that the illness representation of patients is based on received external information and past experiences, and that patients undergo the three stages of illness representation, coping, and appraisal when suffering from disease. In this article, the Leventhal self-regulation model was applied to better understand the correlation between illness representation, coping behaviors, and disease outcomes in patients with endometrial cancer at different disease phases. Clinical health providers may utilize this self-regulation model to help patients with endometrial cancer develop positive illness representation and adopt active coping strategies to realize a better adjustment.
Title: 談自我調整模式於子宮內膜癌的運用.
子宮內膜癌是台灣女性生殖器官癌症發生率排名首位，然而大眾對其了解及重視程度卻遠不及於其他類女性生殖器官癌症。雖然早期診斷為子宮內膜癌高存活率的主因，然而由於可接收到的外在訊息不足，導致多數子宮內膜癌病人有著負向或不切實際的疾病詮釋，續而可能影響其因應行為和疾病結果。Leventhal提出的自我調整模式指出，病人的疾病詮釋發展來自於外在訊息和過往經驗，當面對疾病刺激時，會經歷疾病詮釋、因應、評價等三個階段。本文試圖以Leventhal自我調整模式為基礎，來瞭解處於不同疾病時期子宮內膜癌病人的疾病詮釋、因應行為和疾病結果的相關性。期望未來臨床醫療人員能運用此模式，協助子宮內膜癌病人能正向的疾病詮釋、採取積極的疾病因應策略，以達到更好的疾病調適。.
Keywords: endometrial cancer; illness representation; self-regulation model.