Adaptation to Long-Term Prostate Cancer Survival: The Perspective of Elderly Asian/Pacific Islander Wives

Abstract

Increasingly evident is the important role of partners in patients' adaptation to diagnosis, treatment, and recovery. Yet, little is known about partners' adaptation when patients reach the benchmark known as long-term survival. This study describes elderly wives of prostate cancer survivors' perspectives of adaptation to the enduring challenges of prostate cancer survival and considers their experience in the context of ethnicity. Content analysis and grounded theory methods guided data collection and analysis of two waves of in-depth interviews with 26 elderly Asian/Pacific Islanders (Chinese, Filipino, Japanese, Native Hawaiian) living in Hawai'i. Continuous learning was the most common phenomenon as reflected in four types of adaptive work: involvement in husband's health, affirmation of the marital bond, normalization of adversity, and participation in personally meaningful acts. Issues are highlighted for consideration in developing culturally relevant, age-appropriate, and strengths-based interventions.

Resilience in Families of Husbands with Prostate Cancer

“…Researchers (Boehmer & Clark, 2001;Danielson et al, 1993;Dunkel-Schetter, 1984;Gotcher, 1995;Gray, Fitch, Phillips, Labrecque & Klotz, 1999;Ka'opua, Gotay, Hannum & Bunghanoy, 2005) found that supportive, caring, encouraging and positive communication is positively correlated to patient and family adjustment to cancer. Danielson et al (1993) found that it is easier if the family share their feelings versus hiding them, as this frees family members to offer each other support.…”

Living with prostate cancer: a critical review of relatives' experiences

“…When one's aim is to describe the couple's perspective on and experiences of prostate cancer, it is not relevant to be able to distinguish their individual experiences, but if one's aim, as in this literature review, is to discover the nature of the individual perspectives on and feelings about prostate cancer diagnosis, the participation of both partners as informants in a qualitative research project may be a problem. Ka'opua et al (2005) Challenges: Challenges: Wives were challenged by psychosocial sequelae associated with their husband's cancer treatment, thought's of life's ephemeral nature, through search for purpose and positive meaning in adversity.…”

“…On critical analysis of the 29 QRPs with regard to this issue, only six QRPs remain in which the informants could be classified distinctively as either spouse, daughter or son (inclusion criterion 3) (Green, 1987;Rosenberg, 1998;Butler et al, 2000;Giarelli et al, 2003;Ka'opua et al, 2005Ka'opua et al, , 2007. These final six 'clean' papers form the central core of this review ( Figure 1).…”

“…necessary for the spouse to look for meaning in her new life situation (Ka'opua et al, 2007). The spouse adapted to everyday life by taking meaningful action (Ka'opua et al, 2005(Ka'opua et al, , 2007. She tried to regain control by focusing on her partner's health and by attending to his well-being.…”

“…self-help groups, where themes such as self-care and sexuality could be discussed (Butler et al, 2000;Ka'opua et al, 2005Ka'opua et al, , 2007. The son was affected by the fact that the father tried to be as he was before the illness (Green, 1987), while the daughter 'saw her father cry for the first time' (Rosenberg, 1998).…”