Lived Experience of Women Living with Breast Cancer in the Maldives: A Case Study

DOI

10.2991/978-94-6463-248-4_16How to use a DOI?

Keywords

Breast Cancer; Case Study; Cancer Treatment; Lived Experiences

Abstract

Breast cancer affects the lives of women, and this isalso the most common cancer for women in the Maldives.This study aims to understand the lived experience of a Maldivian woman undergoing breast cancer treatment. A single case of breast cancer was purposely chosen among the women receiving chemotherapy from Hulhumale’ Hospital. A semi-structured questionnaire was used to gather data. Five themes emerged through thematic analysis. Feeling sick, feeling weak due to chemotherapy; Being hopeful, religious with a positive attitude; Satisfied with support, grateful for assistance from her children, health professionals, and from the community; Fear of dependency, she had a preconceived fear of being dependent during radiation therapy; Out-of-pocket expenditure, expenses incurred for travel. Findings revealed that the participant was hopeful with her positive attitude and religious practice; It was a burden to spend to travel for chemotherapy and believed that financial support or free traveling arrangement should avail through the social support system. There was uncertainty about the consequences of radiation therapy based on her current information and assumed that she would be sick and depend on others. Support and empathetic relationships are important for breast cancer patients to enhance positivity and hopefulness. There is also a need to strengthen awareness programs and existing support systems. The experience associated with this study may not be the same for others in the Maldives. However, the findings direct future research and interventions.

Copyright

© 2024 The Author(s)

Open Access

Open Access This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits any noncommercial use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made.

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TY  - CONF
AU  - Salma Hassan
AU  - Nazeera Najeeb
PY  - 2023
DA  - 2023/10/03
TI  - Lived Experience of Women Living with Breast Cancer in the Maldives: A Case Study
BT  - Proceedings of the Second International Nursing Conference "Nursing Profession in the Current Era" (INC 2023)
PB  - Atlantis Press
SP  - 197
EP  - 205
SN  - 2468-5739
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2991/978-94-6463-248-4_16
DO  - 10.2991/978-94-6463-248-4_16
ID  - Hassan2023
ER  -