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Lay people's psychological reactions and helping intention after friends’ cancer disclosure: An exploratory analysis using vignettes
Author(s) -
Tsuchiya Miyako
Publication year - 2019
Publication title -
european journal of cancer care
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.849
H-Index - 67
eISSN - 1365-2354
pISSN - 0961-5423
DOI - 10.1111/ecc.13150
Subject(s) - vignette , medicine , thematic analysis , empathy , cancer , intervention (counseling) , affect (linguistics) , clinical psychology , qualitative research , family medicine , social psychology , psychology , psychiatry , social science , communication , sociology
Objectives Stigma, anticipated responses from others, and their relationships may affect patients’ decision‐making of cancer disclosure. However, little research has explored responses to cancer disclosure and the outcome from receivers’ perspectives who had stereotypic views of cancer. This vignette study aimed to explore how lay people with negative attitude to cancer would react to the friend's cancer disclosure. Methods A cross‐sectional survey study was conducted in community organisations. Of 161 recruited, 91 participants returned their questionnaires (56.5% of response rate). A total of 88 responses to open‐ended questions were qualitatively analysed. Results Thematic analysis extracted four themes: ‘Initial emotional reactions and the acceptance of the friend’s cancer diagnosis’; ‘Empathy, trust and helping intention’; ‘Sharing informational and emotional support provision’; and ‘Offering help, but waiting and seeing the friend's request.’ As a result of comparison to these themes by the participants’ familiarity of cancer patients in their real life, it was found that participants, who had not known any cancer patients, did not report the acceptance of the friends’ cancer diagnosis and informational support provision to share. Conclusion Intervention for lay people who felt difficulty with accepting friends’ cancer diagnosis may be helpful to reduce the impact of friends’ cancer diagnosis.