Gunnel Drugge

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Som en vit ros och så där

THE STUDY DESCRIBES 52 patients' experiences and feelings towards theirillness and the care received in connection with it. The main purpose ofthe study is to gather knowledge on cancer patients' need of psychosocialcare and from this insight draw up a proposition for a clinically usefulmethod for psychosocial care. I have met and spoken with the patients,each suffering from a different form of cancer, on one occasion. They areall patients o'f the Department of General Surgery, Östersund Hospital.The taped conversations constitute the most important source for thisthesis, which has its crucial point in the empirical part. My theoreticalframe of reference has a psychodynamic and existential perspective.To distinguish and give as clear a picture as possible on what it'slike to get a cancer and live with it, different phases have been drawnup showing the process of a cancer. Living with a cancer means adjustingto constant uncertainty and a fear of recurrence. That which is typicalfor the process of a cancer is that a crisis here is so different fromthe classical pattern of reaction and comes and goes in waves.The different phases show unsatisfactory psychosocial care and the mostobvious déficiences are to be found in connection with the first consultationwith a doctor, when receiving the diagnosis and also at the routinecheck-ups.That which, like the symbolic main thread, runs through the whole dissertationis the lack of dialogue and criticism of the inferior continuityamong the doctors.In the last chapter I have made a suggestion for the future psychosocialcare of cancer patients.