Learning from Patients and Their Spouses

Tape-recorded interviews were conducted individually with 54 cancer patients and their spouses. Analysis of these interviews provided insights into the subjects' concerns about family functioning and the interactions between their family system and the health care delivery system. The purposes of the study were to (1) allow cancer patients and their spouses to share their thoughts, feelings, and perceptions of their experiences, (2) enable patients and spouses who were still in the child-rearing stages of the family life cycle to describe the stresses created in their families by the experience of cancer, (3) assess the patients' and spouses' perceptions of the helpfulness of staff in a university hospital specializing in cancer treatment and reserch, and (4) use this information to suggest ways that health care providers can respond more effectively to the psychosocial needs of such families.