In this article we draw on Bury's theory of biographical disruption to discuss the meanings of, and emotional experiences related to, being diagnosed with breast cancer among southern Thai women. Qualitative methods, including in-depth interviewing and drawing methods, were used to collect data from 20 women with breast cancer. The women perceived breast cancer to be a rhok raai; an evil or dread disease. They believed that breast cancer would lead to death. The disruption in their biography occurred when they detected abnormalities indicating breast cancer. The women's narratives revealed their chaotic lives upon this diagnosis and the news precipitated in them shock, fear, anxiety and loss of hope. Although they experienced chaos and disruption, the women cultivated strategies that helped them cope with their experiences by accepting their fate and adhering to Buddhist beliefs and practices. Through their narratives of biographical disruption, the women in our study offer healthcare providers knowledge that could lead to an appreciation of their needs and concerns. This knowledge is crucial for health professionals who wish to provide emotional support to women who have been diagnosed with breast cancer in Thailand and elsewhere.

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Purpose: To discuss social support among women with breast cancer in rural communities in southern Thailand. Design: Qualitative research that allowed researchers to understand the lived experiences of women living with breast cancer and social support. Methods: In-depth interviewing and drawing methods were adopted with 20 women with breast cancer. Thematic analysis was employed to analyze the data. Findings: Most women with breast cancer received three types of social support: emotional support, tangible support, and informational support. Most support came from family members and relatives. Religion was also a form of social support for women. Many women, however, received insufficient social support from healthcare providers. This reduced their capacity to manage their illness, thus impacting their well-being. Conclusions: Various forms of support are essential for women with breast cancer so that they can better cope with their condition. Clinical Relevance: Nurses and other health professionals are an important source of social support for women with breast cancer. Through having an understanding of and being sensitive to these women's experiences, culture, and challenges, nurses and healthcare professionals can provide more individualized support and care to women during a vulnerable period of their life. We contend that the cultural perspectives of patients are crucial in nursing science. Nurses need to appreciate the importance of culture for the support of patients with breast cancer.

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Background: Breast cancer is a leading cause of morbidity and mortality among women worldwide and in Thailand. Objective: To explore perceptions of breast cancer and screening prevention programmes among a group of at-risk women in a multicultural setting in southern Thailand. Methods: Semi-structured in-depth interviews were used for data collection with 30 at-risk group women. Women from Muslim and Buddhist backgrounds were purposively included in this study. The thematic analysis method was used to analyse the data. Results: Four themes were identified from our data: perceptions of breast cancer, being diagnosed with breast cancer and anxiety, stigma: effects of breast cancer, and breast self-screening and prevention of breast cancer. The participants had some knowledge about the risk factors for breast cancer. However, participants perceived that breast cancer could occur to individual women at any time and that it was not possible to entirely prevent the disease, even when following a breast self-examination programme. However, most participants perceived that whether one would be afflicted by breast cancer depended also on Allah and their own karma. All participants were encouraged to attend breast self-screening training by healthcare providers of local health centres, but they had no confidence to perform self-screening soon after finishing the training programme. This became the reason for a lack of regular self-screening with responsibility left to health practitioners. Although participants were aware that breast self-screening should be their routine practice, there were multiple barriers to this, including accurate knowledge about breast cancer, belief, self-awareness, screening skills and healthcare facilities. Breast self-screening was recognised as an important means of early detection. However, most women did not perform this regularly, which could increase their risk of developing breast cancer. Conclusions: Public health providers need to be more concerned about the perceptions, beliefs and practices regarding breast cancer and develop prevention practices that work better for women living in more diverse cultural locations so that they may be able to follow preventive practices and reduce their vulnerability to breast cancer.

We conducted in-depth interviews with 20 women living with breast cancer and invited them to take part in a drawing method. In this paper, we discuss the lived experiences and meaning-making of breast cancer among women in southern Thailand. Our data revealed that the diagnosis of breast cancer generated numerous emotional responses. However, after the initial shock, most women started to accept their reality. The acceptance of their breast cancer played an essential role in the meaning-making discourse because it assisted the women to be able to sustain the equilibrium of their emotional well-being. Meaning-making and the Buddhist belief about bad karma was a prominent theme. The belief that adversities in life were the result of bad deeds that one had committed to others in the past not only helped the women to accept their fate but also to deal with their life situations better. Our findings suggest that these women act in their own agencies to counteract any negativity they might encounter from their breast cancer trajectory. It provides a theoretical understanding about the ways Thai women deal with their breast cancer which can be adopted as a means to provide culturally sensitive care for women with breast cancer in Thailand and elsewhere.

It is important for nurses to understand such experiences so that they may support appropriate coping strategies suited to each woman. Community health nurses need to view each woman with breast cancer as a unique person and appreciate how to provide appropriate care and support based on each woman's experience with her illness and treatment.

The status of the insider and outsider is an important concept for cross-cultural research. Being a cultural insider is recognized as a strength that allows the researcher to take part in the everyday lives of local people and to get closer to the participants. We explore these issues using examples from our own research with Thai people in southern Thailand and in Melbourne, Australia. We suggest that insider status has an impact on whether the researchers can conduct successful fieldwork and obtain in-depth understanding of the phenomenon being investigated. Being an insider enables a researcher to conduct research more sensitively. It helps in gaining a deeper understanding of the sociocultural contexts of the research setting. However, there are also challenges associated with insider status. These include the need to reestablish our position in a community, our assumptions about what the participants tell us, and participants' expectations about us. This article provides case examples for researchers who are interested in conducting research, particularly within the Thai context. It should contribute to a conceptual understanding of real life experiences in a cross-cultural context in general.