When good news are not enough: Predicting trauma-related symptoms and non-specific distress after negative and positive breast biopsy results

The disclosure of breast biopsy results, whether indicating cancer (positive) or not (negative), can be experienced as a psychologically distressing event and could involve perceived threat to life. As peritraumatic distress is a predictor of post-event psychological symptoms, its investigation in the context of breast cancer screening could improve early identification of individuals at risk for persistent distress. This study first examined the proportion of individuals exceeding the clinical threshold for post-traumatic stress symptoms (PTSS) and non-specific distress (DT) at 7 days and 1-month post-biopsy results. It then tested whether peritraumatic distress experienced at the time of the result disclosure predicted PTSS and DT at both timepoints. An exploratory objective assessed whether perceived life threat at disclosure predicted distress outcomes differently based on biopsy results. In a sample of 191 participants, 85.9% exceeded the PTSS threshold at 7 days and 73.6% at 1 month. In contrast, 12.3% exceeded the DT threshold at 7 days, and 8.5% at 1 month. Peritraumatic distress significantly predicted PTSS at 7 days (<i>B</i> = 0.44, SE = 0.16, <i>t</i> = 2.80, <i>p</i> = .006) and 1 month (<i>B</i> = 0.76, SE = 0.18, <i>t</i> = 4.26, <i>p</i> < .001), and DT at only 7 days (<i>B</i> = 0.08, SE = 0.03, <i>t</i> = 2.60, <i>p</i> = .010), regardless of diagnosis outcome. Exploratory analyses showed that perceived life threat at disclosure predicted PTSS at both timepoints, only among individuals with negative results (<i>B</i> = 6.59, SE = 2.03, 95% CI [2.58, 10.59], <i>p</i> < .001). These findings highlight that the screening process itself can be perceived as life-threatening, and that assessing peritraumatic distress at the time of biopsy results may help prevent lasting symptoms, even without a cancer diagnosis.