The social perception of cancer largely determines quality of life during illness. Attitudes towards people with this type of illness depend mainly on the knowledge we have and our attitudes towards them. Nevertheless, stereotypes, which are constructed on the basis of information reaching the individual, play a very significant role in the perception of sick people. Hence the high importance of health education and the transmission of accurate knowledge.
Living with cancer presents significant challenges, especially in terms of socially defining an appropriate 'framework'. For the sufferer, a kind of compulsion is expressed - to lead a certain lifestyle, i.e. to renounce one's preferences in favour of reducing the risk of reactivation of the disease process. In addition, the person suffering from cancer is required to fight a battle that many times involves failure and undergoing prolonged and burdensome therapy, which often results in changes to one's own body and a sense of loss of self-identity. For this reason, it is very important that cancer becomes a greater focus of the sociology of illness [3].
Societal attitudes also vary, and for the most part they are hurtful to the patient. Whether as a bystander we do not talk about the disease at all, considering that the subject is not there or treating the patient as a victim. However, it should be borne in mind that being ill in itself is already a sufficient reason for dysfunction and the performance of social roles, so the way in which we approach people who are ill has a significant impact on the quality of their lives [3].
