Introduction Patients try to find an explanation to their disease in order to accept it. We aimed in our study to evaluate patients’ beliefs about breast and gynecologic cancer causation and to assess its impacts on their mental healths .

Methods Patients (n=61) treated for breast or gynecologic cancers were asked to answer a questionnaire evaluating beliefs about cancer causation. The ‘’Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale’’ was used to measure depression.

Results Median age was 47.1 years [30–76]. Breast cancer was the most common primary cancer (80%), followed by endometrial (10%) and ovarian (7%) cancers. Two patiens thought that the cancer was a contagious disease. Eighty seven percent of patients believed that god was testing their faith. However, two patients thought that the cancer was a divine punishment. Twenty nine percent of patients believed that they were the cause of their disease : stressful lifestyle in 16%, diet in 6%, lack of breastfeeding in 6% and tobacco in 1%. Beliefs of being the cause of the disease were associated with more depression symptoms (OR :3.7 [1.16–12.3]. Being practising muslim or not did not impact depression symptoms.

Conclusion/Implications Some beliefs could affect patients’ mental health. Care providers should discuss with their patients, detect wrong belief and try to correct it.