Spirituality and mental adjustment have been widely adopted as coping strategies among women with breast cancer. Little information was available locally on the use of spirituality and mental adjustment as coping mechanisms to fight breast cancer. A cross-sectional study was conducted to assess spirituality and mental adjustment as coping strategies and its association with socio demographic data on 216 women with breast cancer. The Functional Assessment of Chronic Illness Therapy-Spiritual Well-Being (FACIT-Sp) and Mental Adjustment to Cancer (MAC) Scales were used to assess spirituality and mental adjustment. Negative correlation between spiritual well-being and helplessness/hopelessness (r=-0.690; p=0.000), anxious preoccupation (r=-0.277; p=0.000) and avoidance (r=-0.235; p=0.000) and positive correlation between spiritual well-being and fighting spirit (r=0.668; p=0.000) were identified. Socio-demographic factors such as race (p=0.000), religion (p=0.000), academic qualification (p=0.004) and type of surgery (p=0.016) revealed significant relationship with spiritual well-being. Fighting spirit, hopelessness/helplessness and anxious preoccupation also yielded significant relationship with race (p<0.0001), religion (p=0.001) and academic qualification (p=0.024). Helplessness/hopelessness had a significant relationship with stage of disease (p=0.017) and type of surgery (p=0.011). Meanwhile, fatalistic and avoidance showed a strong relationship with age (p=0.014, r=0.167), occupation (p=0.001) and income (p=0.006), race (p=0.007) and academic qualification (p=0.005). It is thus, concluded that spirituality and mental adjustment are two coping strategies widely adopted by Malaysian women after a breast cancer diagnosis and throughout their breast cancer journey. Women with breast cancer, therefore, should be treated holistically rather than just the disease itself.
Breast Neoplasms ; Spirituality ; Adaptation, Psychological

Working in prolonged standing position among industrial workers has been shown to be associated with different potentially serious health outcomes, namely lower back pain, leg pain, fatigue, discomfort, and other health issues. Personalisation of insole offers a solution that will provide a perfect fit and comfort to the shoes wearer based on the ergonomic considerations. It works in a way that it alters the pressure away from painful areas by increasing the surface area that supports the weight of the body and evenly distributes it to the whole plantar area. Survey was conducted among workers at a manufacturing industry company to study on the level of pain experienced by them together with their foot anthropometry. Then, the foot pressure of each of the workers was collected by using pressure measurement device (F-scan). Combination of these data was used to design the customized insole that is fit for the worker. The personalised insoles were fabricated by using Additive Manufacturing technology. After that, the insoles were validated by using the F-scan and Electromyogram (EMG) to ensure their effectiveness in reducing pressures on the foot and muscle activity hence improving the comfort of the shoe wearer. At the end of the experiment, it was found that the insole is able to reduce the peak pressure of four out of five areas of the worker’s foot with the reduction of pressure percentage ranging from 6% to 28%.
Personalised insole ; additive manufacturing ; foot pressure ; muscle activity