It is well recognised that physical illness is associated with an increased risk of experiencing psychological problems and disorder and that there is considerable variation in the nature and severity of psychological reaction. This variance is not explained by physical disease characteristics alone. The meaning that is ascribed by patients to physical illness experiences has been examined as a potential explanatory variable. However the term 'meaning' has been used inconsistently and has been subject to semantic confusion within the literature. The term has been used to refer to discrete interpretations, the process of making sense of the occurrence of traumatic personal events and the outcome of this process of 'search for meaning'. Meaning can also be distinguished in term of whether it is focused on cross- situational and global themes (e.g. 'The world is unjust, cruel and unfair') from a focus on interactions between an individual and situation specific events, so called situational meaning (e.g. 'I blame myself for having cancer'). Cancer is known to be associated with a number of specific psychological challenges many of which have informed research in psychosocial oncology. Global and situational meaning have been examined across a range of clinical populations. The existence of a range of valid and reliable assessment measures of global meaning has contributed to this literature. Although studies are beginning to examine global meaning in cancer, further development in understanding situational meaning in cancer has been hampered by the lack of any validated measure for this purpose.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:bl.uk/oai:ethos.bl.uk:479106 |
| Date | January 2004 |
| Creators | White, Craig Allen |
| Publisher | University of Glasgow |
| Source Sets | Ethos UK |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Source | http://theses.gla.ac.uk/39057/ |
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