The purpose of this qualitative research is to provide an in-depth exploration of the impact that a diagnosis of a terminal illness has on family functioning. The goal is to gain insight into adult children's personal experience when a parent is diagnosed with a terminal form of cancer. This study explores how families respond, adapt and cope when this specific family member is diagnosed with a terminal illness. It also explores any significant changes in relationships within the family and any shifts in the roles of the members and how they adjusted to such shifts. / The study is informed by a phenomenological paradigm and used an explorative, qualitative design, which included semi-structured interviews. Participant text and "found poetry" is used in order to present a more accurate account of the participants' experiences. Found poetry provides an opportunity to hear the participant's voices by taking direct quotes from their transcripts and forming them into a poem. Themes of denial, anger, helplessness, hope and anticipatory grief/mourning are portrayed in the findings of this study. The difficult emotional dilemmas and tensions that people have to work through when faced with a family member dying are discussed. The realization of the loss of future relationships will be identified as one of the greatest impacts of the illness. This study shows the lack of professional supports and resources that are available for each participant's family in being faced with the diagnosis of a terminal illness, and will address a needed consideration for social work practice.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:QMM.112611 |
| Date | January 2007 |
| Creators | Davidson, Melissa J. |
| Publisher | McGill University |
| Source Sets | Library and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Coverage | Master of Social Work (School of Social Work.) |
| Rights | All items in eScholarship@McGill are protected by copyright with all rights reserved unless otherwise indicated. |
| Relation | alephsysno: 002710975, proquestno: AAIMR51429, Theses scanned by UMI/ProQuest. |
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