Objective To provide an in-depth description of the decision-making process that women who are diagnosed with cancer undergo as they decide whether to accept or decline fertility cryopreservation. Design A qualitative, grounded theory approach. Setting and Participants Twenty-seven women (mean age = 29 years) who were diagnosed with cancer and were eligible for egg, embryo, or ovarian tissue cryopreservation were recruited from the Internet and two university centers. Methods Each woman participated in a semi-structured interview by phone (n = 21) or email (n = 6). Data were analyzed using the constant-comparative method to inductively ascertain the women’s decision-making process. NVivo 8 software was used to assist with data retrieval and analysis. Results The decision-making process consists of four major phases that women experience to actively formulate a decision: identify, contemplate, resolve, and engage. In the identify phase, women acquire knowledge and experience a double hit scenario that is often devastating. Within the contemplate phase, five interrelated dimensions emerged including constructing and/or endorsing preferences and values and undergoing decisional debriefing sessions. A decision is reached in the resolve phase and carried out in the engage phase. Among the participants, 14 declined fertility cryopreservation and 13 accepted egg and/or embryo cryopreservation. Conclusion The descriptive theoretical framework clarifies the underlying processes that women with cancer undergo to decide about fertility cryopreservation. Quality of care for women with cancer can be improved by implementing appropriately timed information and tailored developmental and contextual counseling to support decision making.
Background Young women with cancer now face the complex decision about whether to undergo fertility preservation. Yet little is known about how these women process information involved in making this decision. Objective The purpose of this paper is to expand theoretical understanding of the decision-making process by examining aspects of information processing among young women diagnosed with cancer. Methods Using a grounded theory approach, 27 women with cancer participated in individual, semi-structured interviews. Data were coded and analyzed using constant-comparison techniques that were guided by five dimensions within the Contemplate phase of the decision-making process framework. Results In the first dimension, young women acquired information primarily from clinicians and Internet sources. Experiential information, often obtained from peers, occurred in the second dimension. Preferences and values were constructed in the third dimension as women acquired factual, moral, and ethical information. Women desired tailored, personalized information that was specific to their situation in the fourth dimension; however, women struggled with communicating these needs to clinicians. In the fifth dimension, women offered detailed descriptions of clinician behaviors that enhance or impede decisional debriefing. Conclusion Better understanding of theoretical underpinnings surrounding women’s information processes can facilitate decision support and improve clinical care.
Interventions that promote autonomous motivation, decrease physical activity cons, and address present and future worries may increase physical activity in young adult cancer survivors and may have a greater impact on women than men.
Although aggressive medical treatment protocols have led to 80% 5-year survival rates for most childhood cancers, many long-term survivors experience multiple troubling symptoms. Using data from 100 adult survivors of childhood cancers (ACC-survivors), we used latent variable mixture modeling to generate unique subgroups of survivors based on their experiences with a cluster of eight symptoms: lack of energy, worry, pain, difficulty sleeping, feeling irritable, feeling nervous, difficulty concentrating, and feeling sad (as measured by the Memorial Symptom Assessment Scale). We also examined factors that were likely to predict subgroup membership (chronic health conditions, health-promoting lifestyle, and demographic variables) and determined the extent to which satisfaction with quality of life (QoL) varied across the subgroups. The final mixture model included three subgroups of ACC-survivors: high symptoms (HS) (n=21), moderate symptoms (MS) (n=45), and low symptoms (LS) (n=34). ACC-survivors who reported at least one chronic health condition were six times as likely to be classified in the HS subgroup as compared to the LS subgroup. Mean health-promoting lifestyle scores were lowest in the HS subgroup and highest in the LS subgroup. Differences in QoL among the subgroups were statistically significant, thus validating that the subgroups were characterized uniquely for identifying those symptoms with highest life impact. To our knowledge, we are the first to identify distinct subgroups of ACC-survivors differentiated by symptom cluster experience profiles. The findings warrant additional research to confirm the subgroup-specific symptom cluster experience profiles in larger studies of ACC-survivors. KeywordsCancer; oncology; adult survivors of childhood cancers; symptom cluster; latent variable mixture models; quality of life
These findings suggest that low rates of cesarean in birth centers are not attributable to labor setting alone. The entire birth center care model, including prenatal preparation and relationship-based midwifery care, should be studied, promoted, and implemented by policy makers interested in achieving appropriate cesarean rates in the United States.
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