M.A. / A diagnosis with cancer causes certain fears in a patient, as well as, their family. It activates intense emotional responses in everybody concerned. Reach for Recovery play a huge role in mastectomy patients and their family's lives. It is there to support the patient and to understand what the patient is experiencing. Reach for Recovery is a selfhelp group, functioning under the name of the Cancer Association of South Africa. The group was started in 1952 in the USA, at a time when there was a tendency to discourage patients from discussing their operations with other patients. Therese Lasser, a mastectomy patient, realized that not enough was being done for women whose life had changed dramatically in the span of a few hours. The goal of the study was to do training for Reach for Recovery volunteers. To assess if the Reach for Recovery volunteer is fulfilling in the need of the mastectomy patient. A qualitative approach, using an inductive strategy, was followed to achieve the aim of the study. Focus groups are being used to gather information about the functioning of the Reach for Recovery groups at present. Focus groups were held in the Far East Rand and the West Rand with the Reach for Recovery support groups. The purpose of the focus group was to identify the needs of the mastectomy patients, to enable the researcher to identify guidelines for the Reach for Recovery programme. A literature control was done after the central themes were identified. After having compared the results of the focus group with the relevant literature certain conclusions were drawn and recommendations made. In conclusion to this study, guidelines were designed to be used in the Reach for Recovery programme when the training is done.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:netd.ac.za/oai:union.ndltd.org:uj/uj:10245 |
| Date | 12 September 2012 |
| Creators | Robbertze, Sterna |
| Source Sets | South African National ETD Portal |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
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