Cancer in a Dyadic Context

ISBN-13: 9783639135732 / Angielski / Miękka / 2009 / 160 str.

Daniel S. Gardner

Opis

Older adults rarely face the stress of living withadvanced cancer in a social vacuum. Partners andspouses are profoundly affected by, and contribute to thepatients experience with illness. Partners provide the bulk of emotionaland physical support and share in medical decision-making, treatment adherence and psychosocial adjustment.Psycho-oncology research primarily emphasizes the individual responses of patientsand partners toillness. Relatively little empirical attention hasbeen paid to thepartner relationship, and less to older couples. Thisstudy examined the subjective and intersubjective experiences, andcommunication and support processes of 35 oldercouples livingwith advanced cancer. Data collected through focused,semi-structured interviews with patients and partners recruited froman urban cancer center were analyzed within individual, micro-socialand macro-social contexts, and systematically coded usinggrounded theory methods. Study findings suggest couples struggle tointegrate often-conflicting individual and dyadic discoursesacross three contextual domains: dyadic structure and care; dyadic communication; and dyadic meaning-making.

O autorze

Daniel S. Gardner, PhD, LCSW is an Assistant Professor at the
Silver School of Social Work, New York University.