Abstract
Objective
To investigate fear of progression (FOP) in nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) patients treated with proton and heavy ion therapy.
Methods
Thirty NPC patients were selected for face-to-face semistructured interviews through purposive sampling while using the phenomenological approach in qualitative research. The interviews were transcribed, organized, and analyzed by applying Colaizzi’s seven-step analysis.
Results
Seven themes were summarized, namely, illness uncertainty, trapped into insecurity (including four categories: insecurity about the possibility of discrimination, insecurity about the possibility of the inability to tolerate the pain of retreatment, insecurity about the difficulty of retreatment after recurrence, and insecurity of waiting for test results), hopelessness, loss, guilt toward children, enhancing tolerance toward family, and self-emotional comfort.
Conclusion
We found that women with children and patients who experienced their first episode underwent significant FOP. Patients at the postgraduate level and above were more inclined to feel loss. The finding that respondents expressed is intense FOP while waiting for test results, which provides a reference for the analysis of the trajectory of FOP. Health care professions should be cognitively aware the importance of eliminating patients’ uncertainty and insecurity about disease to enhance their positive experience in coping with cancer.
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Data availability
The datasets generated during and/or analyzed during the current stud yare available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.
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Funding
The research was supported by the following fundings: Pudong New Area Science and Technology Development Fund (PKJ2020-Y57); Shanghai Pudong New Area Health Commission (PW2022D-10); Fudan University-Fuxing Nursing Research Fund (FNF202104; FNF202129; FNF202204; FNF202232).
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Mimi Zheng: Conceptualization; data curation; formal analysis; investigation; methodology; project administration; software; validation; writing–original draft; writing–review and editing.
Shuman wang: Conceptualization; data curation; formal analysis; investigation; methodology; writing–original draft.
Yu Zhu: Conceptualization; methodology; project administration; writing–review and editing.
Hongwei Wan: Conceptualization; methodology; project administration; writing–review and editing.
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The study has been approved by Shanghai Proton and Heavy on Center Institutional Review Board (ethical approval reference number:2202-53-02).
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Mimi Zheng and Shuman Wang contributed equally to this work and should be considered co-first author.
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Zheng, M., Wang, S., Zhu, Y. et al. A qualitative exploration of fear of progression in patients with nasopharyngeal carcinoma treated with proton and heavy ion therapy. Support Care Cancer 31, 622 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00520-023-08028-3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00520-023-08028-3