The Experiences of Adolescents' Suffering from Cancer: Breaking out of the withdrawn Ego

Yoon Jung Kim; Hye Jin Kwon

doi:10.5388/aon.2013.13.4.304

Journal List > Asian Oncol Nurs > v.13(4) > 1081789

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Kim and Kwon: The Experiences of Adolescents' Suffering from Cancer: Breaking out of the withdrawn Ego

Original Article

Asian Oncology Nursing 2013; 13(4): 304-312.

Published online: 31 December 2013

DOI: https://doi.org/10.5388/aon.2013.13.4.304

The Experiences of Adolescents' Suffering from Cancer: Breaking out of the withdrawn Ego

Yoon Jung Kim, Hye Jin Kwon

Red Cross College of Nursing, Chung-Ang University, Seoul, Korea.

Address reprint requests to: Kwon, Hye Jin. Red Cross College of Nursing, Chung-Ang University, 84 Heukseok-ro, Dongjak-gu, Seoul 156-756, Korea. Tel: +82-2-820-5678, +82-10-8261-2114, Fax: +82-2-824-7961, kwonhj@cau.ac.kr

Received 19 August 2013 Accepted 10 December 2013

(open-access):

This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/) which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this study was to describe and explore the experience of adolescents with cancer.

Methods

This study was based on the grounded theory by Strauss & Corbin (1998). The subjects were 13 adolescents including in and out-patients of a university hospital diagnosed with cancer.

Results

'Getting changed' and 'getting deviated' were found to be the causal conditions. 'Inclination', 'self-reliance', and 'hope' were identified as contextual conditions, 'shrinking feeling' as the core phenomenon, 'awareness of disease', 'self-consciousness', and 'getting understanding and love' as intervening conditions, 'negligence', 'separation', 'self-management', and 'inspiration' as the strategies and 'being shirk', 'getting back', and 'going forward' as consequences. 'Breaking out of the withdrawn ego' was the core category in this study.

Conclusion

This study provides a framework for the development of individualized nursing interventions for 'Breaking out of the withdrawn ego' to care for adolescents with cancer. Finally adolescents with cancer are 'reborn' with a more mature ego.

Keywords: Adolescent, Neoplasms, Life Experience

Figures and Tables

Fig. 1

Experiences of Adolescents' Suffering from Cancer.

Table 1

The Characteristics of Participants

^*(Diagnosis-off)+(Relapse~current); ^†Diagnosis-off; ^‡Diagnosis-relapse-current.

Notes

This article is a condensed form of the first author's doctoral thesis from Chung-ang University.

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