A Qualitative Inquiry of Childhood and Adolescent Cancer Survivors' Perspectives of Independence

Abstract

Supportive care for survivors of childhood and adolescent cancers should include services to help them in their journey toward developmental independence.

Childhood Cancer Survivorship and Substance Use Behaviors: A Matched Case-Control Study Among Hispanic Adolescents and Young Adults

“…This potential delay in initiation may reflect the eventual attainment of normal adolescent/young adult socialization/experimentation among CCS. This may also be due to delayed achievement of independence and/or protection by parents of CCS that extends beyond the period of cancer treatment [10].…”

“Improving to where?”: treatment-related health risks and perceptions of the future among adolescents and young adults after hematopoietic cell transplantation

“…Extensive post-treatment concerns and unmet needs among AYAs have been reported, and the delivery of survivorship care for this population remains a challenge [36,37]. Multiple barriers to follow-up care for AYA survivors exist, including cost, lack of clear recommendations, skepticism, fear and avoidance, and competing life priorities [38]. Research on cancer-related anxiety has understandably placed heavy focus on fear of recurrence [39]; however, participants in this study emphasized anxiety about lifelong risks associated with toxicities of treatment, especially as time since HCT increased.…”

Barriers to follow-up care among survivors of adolescent and young adult cancer

“…Survivors described a need to gain emotional autonomy in an attempt to move past their cancer diagnosis and treatment-related experiences, particularly for survivors who experience cancer in late adolescence, a time of growing independence [24]. For some survivors, the desire to move on manifested in their avoidance of follow-up visits with their providers.…”