Becoming a Cancer Patient: A Study of Families of Children With Acute Lymphocytic Leukemia

Abstract

This grounded theory study was designed to explore the process by which families of children with acute lymphocytic leukemia (ALL) "become" cancer patients. Data were obtained through interviews with four families and three professional caregivers and were analyzed for processes by which families experience the illness of ALL. The central process of "becoming" was defined as trying to live as "normally" as possible; accepting that life is not the same; understanding what you have to do; and accepting what you can't change/living with dissatisfactions. This process was mediated by families' external contexts, including marital relationships and support networks, experiential contexts, including positive and negative experiences during treatment and previous illness experiences, and internal contexts, including personal survival strategies and personal outlooks and attitudes. The process illustrates the pattern of experience that occurs in families faced with the diagnosis of their child's ALL. Understanding this process may be useful to care providers when treating children with cancer.

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