Concept Analysis of the Process Whereby Cancer Patients Come to Terms with Their Illness

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to elicit out and clarify the concept of reconciliation of cancer patients. We searched the Internet with keywords “coming to terms with (Oriai)”, “cancer (Gan)”, and “patient (Kanja)” using a web search system over the period from 2000 to 2013, and used Rodgers’ evolutionary concept analysis to examine the 14 documents we found. As a result, we defined the process whereby cancer patients come to terms with their illness as a process to “undergo the continuous exploration of one’s life while having a fear of death and conflict between the ideal and reality; maintain self-care by devising ways to cope with one’s symptoms and treatment, and provide mutual support among patients to obtain new findings; adjust one’s daily life, re-discover the relationship with others including close friends and family;explore one’s individuality; review one’s life; and re-examine one’s self-concept”. Through concept analysis, we observed that the process whereby cancer patients come to terms with their illness is comprised of active and dynamic attributes to deliberately make efforts to acknowledge and accept their environment and condition, and that the patients gradually acquire the strength to come to terms with their illness through repeatedly developing critical conditions while undergoing medical treatment.