The aim of the study was to illuminate the families' lived experience after completing a child's cancer treatment. The study took place at a University Hospital in southern Sweden. Interviews were carried out with 10 mothers, eight fathers, four patients and two siblings from a total of 10 families. The interviews were analysed with a hermeneutical phenomenological approach. One essential theme emerged from their stories, ‘returning to a changed ordinary life – incorporating a trying and contradictory experience’. The families felt relieved that the treatment was over yet they experienced strains in their daily life. Family members felt changed and especially the parents needed to focus on themselves in order to recover. Closeness with other people, especially their own family, was important. The previously sick children felt a loss of concern from their parents when treatment had ended, in contrast to siblings who experienced increased attention from their parents. Parents experienced being in uncharted territory and sometimes missed the security of hospital. For professionals it is important to offer the family a structured follow-up to help them in their daily life after the child's treatment is completed.
The purpose of the study was twofold: to examine what type of daily stressful events post-menopausal woman with breast cancer experience during adjuvant chemotherapy and how bothersome these are and to identify coping strategies used by these women used to manage such stressful events. The patient group comprised 75 consecutively invited women (>= 55 years of age) at two university hospitals and one county hospital in Sweden. The Daily Coping Assessment was used to collect data over time. Data were analysed both qualitatively and quantitatively. Six categories of stressful events were identified: 'nausea and vomiting', 'fatigue', 'other symptoms', 'isolation and alienation', 'fear of the unknown' and 'being controlled by the treatment'. The first three categories were subsumed under the domain physical problems and the latter three under psychosocial problems. Almost 30% of the diary entries recorded no stressful event. Physical problems were three times as frequent as psychosocial problems. 'Nausea/vomiting' was the most frequently observed stressful event (21.6%). 'Isolation and alienation' and 'fear of the unknown' were less frequent, but when they occurred they were rated as the most distressing. Several coping strategies were used to manage each stressful event. The most common strategies were acceptance, relaxation and distraction. Religion was rarely used as a coping strategy.
The aim of the present study was to examine the patterns of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) use in a sample of head and neck cancer patients, forming part of a larger study. A cross-sectional survey design was used collecting data through a descriptive 27-item questionnaire in nine countries in Europe. The participants were 75 patients with head and neck cancers. The prevalence rate of CAM use was 22.7%. The most common therapies used were herbal medicine (47%), medicinal teas (23.5%), use of vitamins/minerals (11.8%) and visualization (11.8%). Use of CAM dramatically increased after the diagnosis with cancer (i.e. eightfold increase in the use of herbs). A profile of CAM users was not evident in this sample. Patients used CAM for a variety of reasons together, with counteracting the ill effects from cancer and its treatment being the most common one. Information about CAM was obtained mostly from friends and family. As one in five head and neck cancer patients use CAM it is important that clinicians explore practices with their patients, improve communication about CAM with them and assist those who want to use CAM in using appropriate and safe therapies.