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‘Am I really gonna go sixty years without getting cancer again?’ Uncertainty and liminality in young women’s accounts of living with a history of breast cancer
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Rees, Sophie (2017) ‘Am I really gonna go sixty years without getting cancer again?’ Uncertainty and liminality in young women’s accounts of living with a history of breast cancer. Health: An Interdisciplinary Journal for the Social Study of Health, Illness and Medicine, 21 (3). pp. 241-258. doi:10.1177/1363459316677628
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Official URL: https://doi.org/10.1177/1363459316677628
Abstract
Although much research has examined the experience of breast cancer, the distinctive perspectives and lives of young women have been relatively neglected. Women diagnosed with breast cancer under the age of 45, and who had completed their initial treatment, were interviewed, and social constructionist grounded theory methods were used to analyse the data. The end of initial treatment was accompanied by a sense of unease and uncertainty in relation to recurrence and survival, and also fertility and menopausal status. The young women’s perceptions about the future were altered, and their fears about recurrence were magnified by the possibility of many decades ahead during which breast cancer could recur. The implications for the young women’s life course, in terms of whether they would be able to have children, would not become clear for several years after initial treatment. This resulted in a liminal state, in which young women found themselves neither cancer-free nor cancer patients, neither pre- nor post-menopausal, neither definitively fertile nor infertile. This liminal state had a profound impact on young women’s identities and sense of agency. This extends previous understanding of life after cancer, exploring the age-related dimensions of liminality.
| Item Type: | Journal Article | ||||||||
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| Subjects: | B Philosophy. Psychology. Religion > BF Psychology R Medicine > RC Internal medicine > RC0254 Neoplasms. Tumors. Oncology (including Cancer) |
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| Divisions: | Faculty of Medicine > Warwick Medical School > Health Sciences > Clinical Trials Unit Faculty of Medicine > Warwick Medical School > Health Sciences Faculty of Medicine > Warwick Medical School |
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| SWORD Depositor: | Library Publications Router | ||||||||
| Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH): | Young women -- Diseases, Cancer in women, Breast -- Cancer -- Patients -- Interviews, Breast -- Cancer -- Psychological aspects, Liminality, Women -- Identity | ||||||||
| Journal or Publication Title: | Health: An Interdisciplinary Journal for the Social Study of Health, Illness and Medicine | ||||||||
| Publisher: | SAGE Publications | ||||||||
| ISSN: | 1461-7196 | ||||||||
| Official Date: | 1 May 2017 | ||||||||
| Dates: |
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| Volume: | 21 | ||||||||
| Number: | 3 | ||||||||
| Page Range: | pp. 241-258 | ||||||||
| DOI: | 10.1177/1363459316677628 | ||||||||
| Status: | Peer Reviewed | ||||||||
| Publication Status: | Published | ||||||||
| Access rights to Published version: | Restricted or Subscription Access |
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