Ser criança com câncer em etapa final de tratamento - sua visão de futuro / Being a child with cancer at the final stage of treatment their prospects for the future

AUTOR(ES)
DATA DE PUBLICAÇÃO

2009

RESUMO

Some decades ago cancer in children was considered a deadly disease. The development of surgical techniques, chemotherapy and radiotherapy increased the number of children who survived the disease, fact that has brought attention to living with cancer as well as to the pshycosocial needs of the cured children. The present study had the aim of understanding the future vision of children at the final stage of treatment through phenomenological analysis. Qualitative research was choosen to understand the lived situations, in the perspective of Phenomenology in Yolanda Forghieris view. Six interviews were made with children between eight and thirteen years of age, in their hospital appointments with the following guiding question: Now that you are ending your treatment, I would like you to tell me what you think about your future. The interviews were taped and transcripted in full, followed by a broad reading. After this, convergences and divergences were verified and categories of analysis arose. Interpretative analysis revealed that when the treatment is ending and the child no longer has the symptoms of the disease, old references used at the time of treatment still continue to exist for a while. They talk about the past and what they have been through and make predictions of what might happen, remembering the time of treatment. They express the will of looking physically like they used to before the treatment, of taking back activities that had been interrupted or made difficult because of the disease. They showed the importance of affectionate bonds in their lives, their relation with the human world. Nevertheless, in some moments, the children leave the role of sick people to be the carers of their carers, their parents. When they really feel being in the childrens world, they experience a freeing process from a hard and painful treatment, feeling able to think about the future. Along the whole process, they face the paradox life and death and can manage to keep a positive view of the future, willing to return to their life projects and all the wide range of possibilities that their health can bring. They report spirituality in the presence of God as a source of support and overcoming strenght. Becoming sick with cancer is a process that generates pain and suffering for the child and their family but reveals other sides of reality, making new insights into the resources of facing the disease by the children possible and extending the horizons of interventions in the health area.

ASSUNTO(S)

futuro cancer criança câncer fenomenologia phenomenology children future

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