The Mediating Role of Psychological Resilience in the Relationship of Breast Cancer Screening With Cancer Literacy and Health Anxiety

Objectives Breast cancer is one of the most common cancers among women. Early diagnosis and treatment of this disease can significantly reduce its mortality. This research aims to investigated the relationships of breast cancer screening with health anxiety and cancer literacy, mediated by psychological resilience. Methods This is descriptive-correlational study. The study population consists of all women with breast cancer over 40 years old referred to mammography clinics in Rasht, Iran, in 2022. Of these, 300 women were selected by a convenience sampling method. To collect data, the mammography and breast cancer screening questionnaire, the health anxiety inventory, the breast cancer awareness scale, and the Connor-Davidson resilience scale were used. The collected data were analyzed by path analysis using SPSS software, version 23 and Amos version 18. Results The cancer literacy (beta=-0.11), illness anxiety (beta=0.38) and resilience (beta=0.25) had a significant direct relationship with breast cancer screening. The relationship of cancer literacy (beta=-0.17) and health anxiety (beta=0.25) with psychological resilience was also significant (P<0.001). Furthermore, cancer literacy and health anxiety had an indirect relationship with breast cancer screening though psychological resilience. The model fitness indexes showed that the model had a good fit to the data (RAMSEA=0.056). Conclusion Health anxiety is related to increased breast cancer screening, while health literacy is related to decreased breast cancer screening. Psychological resilience can mediate the relationship of health anxiety and health literacy with breast cancer screening.