Abstract
Session presented on: Friday, July 26, 2013:
Purpose: For adolescents with cancer (AWC), cancer poses a threat not only to their lives, but also to their quality of life (QOL). This threat to QOL results from co-occurring challenges to successful achievement of normal developmental tasks such as identity development. The purpose of this longitudinal qualitative study was to explore salient aspects of adolescent development as influenced by cancer.
Methods: Fifteen AWC participated in up to 4 quarterly interviews over the first year following cancer diagnosis exploring their developmental and cancer-related experiences with the intent of generating knowledge related to adolescent development in cancer. Inductive content analysis and constant comparative method were utilized to identify salient themes within and across timeframes.
Results: The work of adolescent identity development is both challenged and enhanced by cancer from the time of diagnosis. AWC are constantly negotiating and renegotiating their identity, both internally and also the 'face' they allow the world to see. This is both normative and non-normative as they negotiate from the perspectives of their adolescent and their cancer selves. Peer and family relationships, already of importance, must be renegotiated within this context as must key issues of physical appearance and body image, particularly hair loss.
Conclusion: AWC are actively negotiating their present realities as both an adolescent and as a cancer patient while making specific plans for the future. Using longitudinal qualitative methods to understand the progression through the simultaneous tasks of adolescence and cancer provides nurses the opportunity to understand patient trajectories and identify key timepoints for intervention. Findings can guide nurses in optimizing adolescent development through a greater understanding of specific challenges associated with negotiating relationships with peers or how symptoms might affect adherence to medication regimens. Nurses can apply findings to promote the health of AWC around the world as they negotiate this dual dynamic.
Sigma Membership
Unknown
Type
Presentation
Format Type
Text-based Document
Study Design/Type
N/A
Research Approach
N/A
Keywords:
Adolescent Development, Cancer
Recommended Citation
Stegenga, Kristin and Macpherson, Catherine Fiona, "Trajectories of identity development in adolescents with cancer" (2013). INRC (Congress). 226.
https://www.sigmarepository.org/inrc/2013/presentations_2013/226
Conference Name
24th International Nursing Research Congress
Conference Host
Sigma Theta Tau International
Conference Location
Prague, Czech Republic
Conference Year
2013
Rights Holder
All rights reserved by the author(s) and/or publisher(s) listed in this item record unless relinquished in whole or part by a rights notation or a Creative Commons License present in this item record.
All permission requests should be directed accordingly and not to the Sigma Repository.
All submitting authors or publishers have affirmed that when using material in their work where they do not own copyright, they have obtained permission of the copyright holder prior to submission and the rights holder has been acknowledged as necessary.
Acquisition
Proxy-submission
Trajectories of identity development in adolescents with cancer
Prague, Czech Republic
Session presented on: Friday, July 26, 2013:
Purpose: For adolescents with cancer (AWC), cancer poses a threat not only to their lives, but also to their quality of life (QOL). This threat to QOL results from co-occurring challenges to successful achievement of normal developmental tasks such as identity development. The purpose of this longitudinal qualitative study was to explore salient aspects of adolescent development as influenced by cancer.
Methods: Fifteen AWC participated in up to 4 quarterly interviews over the first year following cancer diagnosis exploring their developmental and cancer-related experiences with the intent of generating knowledge related to adolescent development in cancer. Inductive content analysis and constant comparative method were utilized to identify salient themes within and across timeframes.
Results: The work of adolescent identity development is both challenged and enhanced by cancer from the time of diagnosis. AWC are constantly negotiating and renegotiating their identity, both internally and also the 'face' they allow the world to see. This is both normative and non-normative as they negotiate from the perspectives of their adolescent and their cancer selves. Peer and family relationships, already of importance, must be renegotiated within this context as must key issues of physical appearance and body image, particularly hair loss.
Conclusion: AWC are actively negotiating their present realities as both an adolescent and as a cancer patient while making specific plans for the future. Using longitudinal qualitative methods to understand the progression through the simultaneous tasks of adolescence and cancer provides nurses the opportunity to understand patient trajectories and identify key timepoints for intervention. Findings can guide nurses in optimizing adolescent development through a greater understanding of specific challenges associated with negotiating relationships with peers or how symptoms might affect adherence to medication regimens. Nurses can apply findings to promote the health of AWC around the world as they negotiate this dual dynamic.