Table 3 Themes and categories of men’s perceptions about breast cancer and their role in women's screening decisions
Themes | Categories |
|---|---|
Supporting one’s wife | - Feeling responsible for the family’s health and wellbeing |
- Encouraging the wife to seek health care | |
- Providing counselling and instrumental support | |
Marital needs and obligations | - Other men’s rejection of a wife inflicted by breast cancer |
- Diminished femininity due to mastectomy | |
- Concerns about protecting the family from the hereditary risk of breast cancer | |
Constrained by a culture of destiny and shame | - An inevitable act of God that is far away from one’s own family |
- Associating breast cancer with improper behaviour | |
- Feeling ready to face the culture of Eib |