Coping with suffering: A thematic analysis of the lifelong illness of cancer patients

Pages:378-387
Meenu (Department of School and Non-formal Education National University of Educational Planning and Administration [NUEPA], New Delhi )

This paper draws on empirical research to explore the ways to understand how cancer patients cope with their suffering throughout their life. A qualitative paradigm was used for this study with data collected using semi-structured interview protocol. The study was conducted on 15 cancer patients of Rajiv Gandhi Cancer Institute and Research Centre, New Delhi, India. To explore the impact and experience of living with cancer in a way that could pressure the situated wholeness of the experience, a phenomenology methodology was used, capture the participants own perception and constructions in living out with cancer. The data collected by the form of interaction with participants. The interviews were open ended to the extent that the participants were allowed to freely talk about their experience. The interviews were then transcribed; meaning unit’s word extracted & themes were derived through the method of analysis given by Strauss Corbin (1990). Four common themes emerged from the analysis of the interviews. They are broadly categorized as: First, Personal meaning of the cancer patient: how the patient sees the cancer and answers quarries in different ways to identify and creating the meaning of their illness. Second, Psycho-social reaction to their illness: many of the psycho-social effects of cancer patient understood in terms of reaction to their illness such as physical, emotional, and socially deprived experience. Third, Coping strategies used by them during the different phases of illness: how does the patients manage their suffering with variety of coping skills and Fourth, Perspective on pre-cancer lives and post-cancer lives: how the patients have changed their thoughts, beliefs such as now they plan their future with some amount of uncertainty but there was no uncertainty prior to diagnosis. Conclusion included that, for the cancer patients, different coping strategies and their attitude towards cancer appeared to be powerful key to fight with their suffering.