Parents with cancer : the experiences of family responsibility

Abstract

Then main aim of this study was to gain an understanding of how women and men with cancer illnesses, looking after children at home, experience and manage their life situation, with focus on the responsibility as parent. An additional aim was to identify the parents’ need for support, in order to develop support activities for them from a family nursing perspective. The perspective of symbolic interactionism influenced the qualitative studies in the thesis. Concepts used in the thesis were transition, identified as a core concept in nursing, and mothering and ethics of care as sensitizing concepts. The emphasis was on a conceptual framework in nursing, encompassing the main components of the theory of transition. The analysis methods used were grounded theory (study I and III), interpretive description (study II) and secondary analysis (study IV). Data was collected from open interviews with women and men with cancer who had children living at home. The participants in study I were nine women with breast cancer, in study II, eight men with cancer in the blood producing organs and in study III, ten women with cancer in blood systems and a focus group interview. Study IV involved the same participants as study I and III. The results of study I illustrate the main theme of how the lives of these women had changed: transforming the exhausting-to-energising process of being a good parent in the face of cancer. All of the women expressed the desire to be a good mother. In study II, a central theme was generated – change in self-image as a man and as a parent. The men’s self-image changed as well as their function as parents. In study III the core concept identified was the experience of dealing with the moral responsibility of being a mother with cancer. The findings were presented as a life story where the women’s experiences were weaved together. In Study IV, the three phases in the transition process were used and a main theme was constructed that integrated these phases: “the desire to manage one’s responsibility as a parent” within the context of mothering. All of the women included in this study expressed the need for professional support to help them to endure treatment procedures as well as to sustain their moral responsibility as good mothers. A model for professional moral support is suggested, based on these findings. The research implications are that the concept of moral support has been identified and can be incorporated into a theoretical model in order to further generate a hypothesis with the aim of creating a useful clinical intervention model. The clinical implications of this are to use and evaluate the tentative model for moral support in clinical practice in patient encounters with the family and in training health care staff.