Women's Decision Styles Relating to Breast Cancer: The Israeli Jewish Perspective

Background and Aim: The beginning of the new millennium was characterized by a wealth of research in the field of decision making encompassing the medical health professions, and including the nursing occupation. The aim of this study was to research the decision styles of Jewish, Israeli women. Method: This study focused on Jewish Israeli women, over 18 years old. Women diagnosed with a possible breast tumor and before they were about to undergo a breast biopsy to diagnose this finding were approached by the researcher. The sample was a convenient sample. Eighty participants were recruited. The recruited women were asked three questions: 1. What are the decision styles of women who were about to have a breast biopsy in all three sectors of the Jewish, Israeli culture? 2. What is the difference between all three sectors concerning all four decision styles? 3. What is the correlation between each style within all three sectors? Results: Due to the small sample size, especially for religious women, the results were limited. The findings agree with the limited literature in this field showing that religious women tend to seek advice from a religious community leader prior to making a decision about their medical condition, especially for the Deferring, Avoidance and Information seeking styles. Conclusion and Implications for Oncology Nursing: It can be established from this study that religious women are a special group, both concerning their participation in medical studies, and their decision making style behaviour. Nurses are probably intuitively involved with women's decision making and can know and estimate their decision style beforehand. In the future, there should be more research on this population, especially in Israel, where few studies have been completed.