The worlds of cancer patients

"The Worlds of Cancer Patients" reports a phenomenological study of the experienced worlds of six cancer patients. In four to ten hours of interviewing with each patient each person's unique experiences of cancer were explored. Data analysis was accomplished using a phenomenological reduction procedure which abstracted essential statements from recorded interview data while retaining verbatim the language of each subject. This procedure followed a paradigm established by Keen, Giorgi, Colaizzi and others. Direct statements about the subjects' experience of cancer were collected from the interview material. The resulting protocols were reduced to their essential elements by eliminating repetition and choosing the best statement in a group of closely related statements. The remaining statements were grouped into theme areas and the themes organized into superordinate groups to facilitate comparison of the six subjects' protocols.

Results were discussed first in terms of the shared perceptions of all six patients of the experience of cancer. Their statements were organized into three superordinate categories: Being, Doing and Being-with-Others. Patients described their relationship with cancer in terms of limitations on their lives and the painfulness of the disease and the treatments. They stated that they "don't dwell on" their illness and don't often think about being a "cancer patient." Perhaps the single most important finding of the study was that each patient, no matter how many or few close family or friends he or she had, described vividly the importance of these relationships in coping with having cancer. Each superordinate category was composed of two thematic elements which are detailed in the results section. These six shared themes were used to develop the Cancer Experience Questionnaire, a small number of questions of value to clinicians and researchers for both psychosocial screening and more detailed interviews with cancer patients. The questionnaire can be used as a tool to quickly discover significant issues and areas of concern for patients. The protocols were also discussed in terms of each subject's unique experience of cancer as well as theme areas of partial agreement: themes which were significant for more than one but not all of the subjects. The discussion section described the value of phenomenological research as a "human science," described the relationship of this study to previous research, covered methodological concerns and suggested areas for further research.