Supervivientes de cáncer infantil. Efectos en el tiempo. Un estudio cualitativo

Abstract

As childhood cancer survival rates had a dramatic growth in the last two decades, a new population of study emerged: childhood cancer survivors. There have been great interest in understanding the psychosocial sequelae and identifying needed areas of intervention. Although working with different approaches and frameworks, every scientist working in the field agrees that cancer treatments leaves marks, imprints, traces of the experience. The concept of traces allows to include different lines of study: post-traumatic stress, psychosocial sequelae, defi cits and maladjustment on one hand and post-traumatic growth, resilience on the other. The objective of the study was to explore parents and children personal meanings about the experience and analyze the relationship of age at diagnosis, communication style and coping style in the family with type of trace in the adolescent and presence or absence of memories. This communication focuses on the influence of parent-survivor interaction and age at diagnosis in the meaning making process and elaboration of the experience. Parents role, their personal meanings and the way they transmit the experience determine children outcome. Age at diagnoses seems to be essential to have own memories and experience post traumatic growth.