For Better or for Worse: Women, Men, Relationships, Quality of Life and Cancer Gela, Natalie R. Research has shown that cancer can have a detrimental impact on patients’ psychological and psychosocial functioning in addition to affecting physical health. Health-related quality of life (HRQOL) is a construct that captures patients’ adjustment in the realms of physical, psychological, social and functional well-being. Not only are patients impacted by a diagnosis of cancer, but it has been widely observed that the adjustment and overall well-being of patients’ families, and especially their spouses, can be impacted as well. Furthermore, links have been observed between patients’ and spouses’ mental and physical health during the experience of coping with cancer, suggesting that spouses may influence each others’ well-being. Given this evidence of cross-partner influence and the strong support for the impact of social support on well-being in the context of cancer, marital quality has been studied as a variable that could impact partnered individuals’ mental and physical health. The present study used a sample of newly-diagnosed cancer patients and their partners (N = 87 pairs) to examine the relationship between cancer patients’ self-reported HRQOL and their self-reported marital quality; as well as to examine the relationship between patients’ HRQOL and their partners’ reported marital quality. Gender was explored as a moderator of these relationships given that the available research is equivocal in regards to how gender influences adjustment to chronic illness, especially within dyads. Additionally, the relationship between patients’ and partners’ reports of marital quality was explored. Support was found for the proposed link between patients’ and spouses’ reports of marital quality and patient report of overall HRQOL, as well as between spouses’ reports of marital quality. Gender was found to moderate the association between patient HRQOL and marital quality; however, gender was not found to moderate the link between patient overall HRQOL and partner’s report of marital quality. These findings demonstrate the importance of the couple relationship to well-being within the context of couples coping with cancer. Implications surrounding the lack of unity in the conceptualization and operationalization of these constructs are discussed, as is the importance of controlling for the influences of gender and social role in future study designs. M.S. in Psychology, December 2011 Corrigan, Patrick W. 2011-12-13 2011-12 Thesis application/pdf islandora:7485 http://hdl.handle.net/10560/2561 PSYCH / Institute of Psychology Illinois Institute of Technology en In Copyright http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/ Restricted Access