Why patients keep illness a secret

JACKIE Collins’s decision not to reveal her breast cancer diagnosis for years may seem unusual – but research suggests she is far from alone.

Cancer patients often choose not to tell their loved ones because they want to protect them and wish to carry on as normal, a study found.

The survey by Bupa revealed that a fifth of men and a quarter of women diagnosed with cancer considered not telling their family and friends.

And of the women who considered not telling friends about their diagnosis, over half just wanted to carry on as normal. One in five couldn’t face having the conversation with close friends, or wanted to protect them from the news.

Miss Collins’s decision to keep her illness a secret may also have been a reflection of her generation’s attitude to health, according to age campaign group Saga. Spokesman Paul Green said that people of Miss Collins’s age often kept their health problems to themselves and endured illness in silence.

He said: ‘For generations your health was seen as something that was very private. It comes from an age when if you were unwell you would be discriminated against, excluded and even shamed.

‘It’s a generational issue but those people often miss out on support from those that love them.’

Jayne Molyneux of Bupa said: ‘We are finding more patients choosing to keep their diagnosis to themselves and dealing with treatment on their own, or until they’ve come to terms with it.’