This diploma thesis tries to describe und explore the lived experiences of men with breast cancer, an illness typical associated with women. The main aims of this thesis are to find out how men with breast cancer feel about their diagnosis, the influence of a feminized illness, breast cancer, to their illness itself and in addition how men feel supported and recognized from the society and the healthcare system. The data were collected via six qualitative interviews with men with breast cancer.

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... The content analysis, following to Mayring, was used for the data analysis. The results show that men who are diseased on breast cancer sometimes feel exotic or not recognized as real men. They also often feel left alone with their illness due to too little or the lack of information. The next problem is that the illness breast cancer is diagnosed very late by men because of the unawareness. A very big problem is the loose of the own body image because of the total mastectomy carried out on men with breast cancer. But this problem is denied by the medical personal. They say it is not urgent to reconstruct a new breast and tell men that there is no reason to be ashamed. One of the side effects of the medicaments is importance, which makes many of the patients feel week and castrated. The patients often feel uncertainty as the doctors give them less information about their illness, the treatment and their treatment's side effects. This causes men to feel not recognized or ignored by the health care system and the society. That men can disease on breast cancer is not known in the society and the medical system. There is no written information about the illness and the side effects of the treatment. They are not invited to meet with other male patients with this disease. The most important role of the health care system would be to inform the society about breast cancer by men, so that men also know that they can get this sort of cancer and will go earlier to a doctor when they notice symptoms. My recommendations for the praxi [...]