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Review
. 2021 Sep;23(3):586-610.
doi: 10.1111/nhs.12839. Epub 2021 Apr 30.

Suffering experiences of people with cancer undergoing chemotherapy: A meta-ethnographic study

Angelo Braga Mendonça  1 , Eliane Ramos Pereira  1 , Carinne Magnago  2 , Angelica Yolanda Bueno Bejarano Vale Medeiros  1 , Rose Mary Costa Rosa Andrade Silva  1 , Adriana de Oliveira Martins  3 , Karina Cardoso Meira  4
Affiliations
Review

Suffering experiences of people with cancer undergoing chemotherapy: A meta-ethnographic study

Angelo Braga Mendonça et al. Nurs Health Sci. 2021 Sep.

Abstract

This meta-ethnography had the objectives of identifying, evaluating, and summarizing the findings of qualitative studies regarding the suffering experiences of people undergoing chemotherapy, as well as developing an explanatory conceptual structure regarding what affects these experiences. A systematic literature review was carried out, covering the past 10 years, in the following databases: CINAHL, Embase, Medline, LILACS and Scopus. By using meta-ethnographic synthesis methods, the following themes were found: the pain of loss; evaluating, measuring, and neutralizing the threat; and social contours of suffering. The experience of living with cancer and undergoing chemotherapy was synthesized into a theoretical-explanatory model with a structure that resembles barbed-wire loops. The model expresses people's suffering experiences as marked by the feeling of loss, restraint of emotions, and resilience. While transcendent movements broke the cycle of suffering, resilience emerged as a learning experience that made patients more resistant to the pain of loss. The results indicated a complex and diverse set of factors that influence suffering, which confirmed that experiences are individual, comprehensive, and continuously reinterpreted.

Keywords: cancer; chemotherapy; ethnographic research; life experiences; resilience; suffering.

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References

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