Inter-relationships among sense of coherence, hope, and spiritual perspective (inner resources) of african-american and european-american breast cancer survivors

This descriptive study compared sense of coherence (SOC), hope, and spiritual perspective in African-American and European-American breast cancer survivors. Five African-American and five European-American survivors completed multiple self-report instruments. Nonparametric statistical analyses included the Spearman rho and Mann-Whitney U tests. As hypothesized, there were significant positive relationships between SOC and spiritual perspective (r(s) =.768, p =.005) and hope and spiritual perspective (r(s) =.561, p =.046). There were no significant differences in SOC, hope, or spiritual perspective scores in the African-American compared with the European-American survivors. Results justify a larger study to explore inner resources of African-American breast cancer survivors.