E a vida sofre transformações: compreendendo a vivência de crianças com câncer à luz da psicologia fenomenológico existencial

Abstract

Cancer is a chronical disease that affects various tissues and organs making transformations in the lives of those who experience it. When a child experiences it, harsh and sudden changes need to be made the routine, affecting interpersonal relations and disorganizing the family’s dynamics. This study’s goal was to understand, from a phenomenological perspective, how children with cancer deal with this disease. This research is qualitative and was developed based on the precepts of the phenomenological method, which aims to capture the essence of the experienced phenomenon. The participants were ten children, age range from seven to twelve years old, accompanied by the Grupo de Apoio à Criança com Câncer (GACC), in the city of Manaus. The data gathering was made throughout individual meetings with the participants, in which an interview was conducted with guideline questions to learn about the children’s experience from their verbalizations. The sessions were audio recorded and later transcribed. The data analysis was elaborated based on the guidance of Martins e Bicudo, it was sought the convergence of the meaning unities which were transformed in thematic categories and contributed to understand the existential experience of these children who face the cancer diagnosis, enabling the comprehensive synthesis of the child with cancer and the comprehensive analysis based on the Existential-Phenomenology, using, essentially, the phenomenological focus of personality elaborated by Forghieri. The research showed that the children experience the first evidences and symptoms on their body, noticing that something is different in its functions, beginning a journey of medical appointments and exams that can clarify what is happening. When the disease is finally confirmed, the parents or the doctors inform the child about his or her nosological framework. For the children to receive the cancer diagnosis is something impacting, suddenly they see themselves in a hospital undergoing a very invasive and painful medical treatment. Children worry, mainly with the disease’s consequences in their lives, thus the condition brings shocking changes in the personal, social and family life routine. The children’s world goes through a series of transformations due to their appearance and routine changes, making the child to live with fear of the disease and its consequences, including the fear of its life, as they face the death of their treatment partners they see that cancer is a diseases whose end is unpredictable and can lead to death. To deal with the repercussion originated by the disease, children use as a facing resource family, friends and health staff support along with their faith in God. All these elements are pictured as motivational factors so children can face the hard battle with neoplasia. So, despite all the physical and emotional suffering caused by the disease, children can believe in their recovery and see a silver lining full of possibilities for their future. This way, being a child with cancer is a painful experience, full of radical transformations, but with the opportunity of overcoming and knowledge.