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Purpose: To assess illness perceptions regarding breast cancer-related lymphedema (BCRL) before discharge following surgery and BCRL risk management behaviors at 3 months postsurgery among Chinese breast cancer patients and to compare the effects of illness perception dimensions and illness perception profiles on predicting BCRL risk management behaviors using two analysis approaches.Methods: A total of 213 breast cancer patients completely participated in this follow-up study. The variable-centered approach (i.e., Pearson correlation analysis) and person-centered approach (i.e., latent profile analysis (LPA) followed by comparison between profiles) were adopted to examine the relationship between illness perception and BCRL risk management behaviors. Multiple linear regression analysis was used to compare the amount of variability in BCRL risk management behaviors explained by illness perception dimensions or illness perception profiles.Results: Using the variable-centered approach, “illness coherence” and “timeline (cyclical)” dimensions were found to be significant components of illness perception predicting BCRL risk management behaviors in the whole population. Using the person-centered approach, LPA identified two profiles and revealed significant differences in BCRL risk management behaviors between them. Overall, illness perception profiles explained smaller amounts of variability in BCRL risk management behaviors than illness perception dimensions at 3 months postsurgery.Conclusions: Based on illness perception regarding BCRL, breast cancer patients were categorized into two profiles. Illness perception dimensions and illness perception profiles showed certain effects on predicting BCRL risk management behaviors. These two methods provided different perspectives on the design and implementation of future interventions addressing maladaptive illness perception regarding BCRL.