2019 Volume 32 Issue 2 Pages 108-122
The aim of the current study was to generate hypotheses regarding communication difficulties for couples struggling with cancer. To that end, this study examined topics that were difficult to discuss for couples struggling with cancer, factors underlying that difficulty, and interrelation between those topics and those factors. For bereaved spouses who lost their partners to cancer, topics that were difficult to discuss were: their opinions on their partner's treatment, their partner's acceptance of his or her illness, their own anxiety, and information on their partner's prognosis. Factors underlying that difficulty were the spouse's difficulty understanding the process of a partner's struggle with cancer, the spouse's inability to fully accept a partner's illness, the family's life stage, the discrepancy between what a spouse thought a partner was thinking and the partner's expressed thoughts, the couple's communication style prior to the diagnosis, and a spouse's access to emotional support. Hypotheses regarding communication difficulties for couples struggling with cancer are shown in Figure 1. Results indicated that discussing a partner's struggle psychologically affects his or her spouse, that there is a discrepancy in a couple's communication, and that a spouse's difficulty understanding the process of a partner's struggle with cancer leads to a cyclical phenomenon whereby the couple has difficulty discussing that struggle. Two potential ways to provide support to spouses of partners struggling with cancer are helpingspouses to understand their partner's struggle and carefully gauging the extent to which a partner and his or her spouse have accepted the partner's illness.
