Changes in the daily family life and in women's life after starting cancer treatment

Abstract

Cancer has a distinctive feature comparing to other chronic diseases once it may cause deformities, pain, mutilation and a strong psychological impact resulting in feelings such as fear, anxiety, doubt and anger. The experience of a serious disease like cancer is not only lived by the patient, but by the whole family. The aim of this study is to understand the changes in women and in the family context after experiencing cancer treatment. It is a qualitative study in which the Symbolic Interactionism and the Grounded Theory were used as theoretical and methodological strategy. Data were collected from March to November 2005. Twenty subjects were included, ten women with cancer and their respective relatives, who were divided in three groups. We observed that women experience a range of social, physical, and emotional reactions as a consequence of the treatment and also of the disease itself, which reflects over the whole family. The results show that both women and their families require multidisciplinary care in order to identify these changes and relieve the emotional pain that follows the disease, from its diagnosis throughout treatment