A qualitative exploratory of cancer survivors into their experience of posttraumatic reality

Abstract

The aim of the study was to explore the participants' subjective experience of their posttraumatic reality. The study was conducted upon the principles of qualitative research and the trauma selected to be processed was cancer. Six cancer survivors were recruit upon specific criteria and were interviewed following a semi-structured interview schedule. The narratives were analyzed according to the guidelines of Willig (2008) regarding Interpretive Phenomenological Analysis (IPA). The data generated from the analysis of the participants' narratives, which was both contextualized and co-constracted between the participants and the researcher, generated a typology of themes and cluster themes for each interviewee that led to the formation of six global themes of all themes of all interviewees. The global themes were the following: the medical world experience; the confrontation of death; the coping methods of the patienthood; the interpersonal aspect of the patienthood; post-illness attempts of meaning making; and development of new attitudes and behavioural corroboration. This research study pursued to capture and register the trauma survivors’ subjective experience of posttraumatic reality considering the multiple layers of the term of posttraumatic growth as it is extensively discussed in the recent trauma literature. The findings of this study address whoever might be interested in accessing the cancer survivors’ posttraumatic reality, among the health and mental health professionals, as well as the current and former cancer patients and their families.