Emotion Suspension: Emotional Experience of Cancer Patients

Abstract

Background: People and communities answer to cancer, like other diseases, due to their cultures, norms, and values. At the personal and family level, the unfamiliarity of the disease can cause many issues for a person. These conditions alter the patient's daily functions, roles, and emotions. Efforts to manage emotions and form behaviors become processes of bonding between the disease's body and social experiences. The aim of this research was to explore the emotions of cancer patients by discovering their meaning and interpretation.

Methods: This research was handled in a qualitative approach utilizing the grounded theory method. Semi-structured interviews were done with 17 cancer patients and their caregivers. Participants were chosen by the purposive sampling method (snowball), and the data provided from the interview after implementation were analyzed by the theoretical coding method.

Results: The findings constructed in 5 main categories including: helplessness in notification, expectation of continuous empathy, admission delay, desire for emotional retrieval and social distress. At last, "suspense of emotions" was constructed as the major phenomenon that was experienced by cancer patients.

Conclusion: Due to the findings of the research, patients' confusion in the face of cancer and their special conditions creates a sort of coping with the situation which prevents the achievement of stability and early concepts, and until reaching relatively established conditions, the patient and those close to them are suspended for some time. This condition puts their emotions in a volatile situation, which brings the experience of suspending emotions.