METHODS: Qualitative interviews were conducted with 9 spouses of men receiving potential curative treatment for prostate cancer.
RESULTS: Prostate cancer in men had significant impact on spouses' everyday life. The results showed that spouses strived to achieve a balance between focusing on their own needs and meeting their husbands' needs along the course of the illness. Four themes emerged: strong and optimistic versus vulnerable and overstrained, maintaining the partner's sense of manhood, being on the sideline, and the need for relationships outside the immediate family.
CONCLUSION: Being a spouse to a man with prostate cancer is emotionally and practically demanding. There is a danger of the spouses suppressing their own needs in the process of supporting their husbands. Those spouses living in the situation over a period of years expressed fatigue and a shift in focus from their husbands' needs to their own needs for support.
IMPLICATIONS FOR PRACTICE: Healthcare providers should provide support for spouses during the course of the illness, encourage spouses to participate in seminars for couples living with prostate cancer, and be aware of the potential for situational fatigue in spouses many years after the diagnosis.
Written by:
Ervik B, Nordøy T, Asplund K. Are you the author?
Department of Health and Care Sciences and Department of Clinical Medicine, Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Tromsø, Norway; Department of Oncology, University Hospital of North Norway, Tromsø; and Department of Health Science, Mid Sweden University, Sundsvall.
Reference: Cancer Nurs. 2012 May 4. Epub ahead of print.
doi: 10.1097/NCC.0b013e31824fe1ef
PubMed Abstract
PMID: 22565105
UroToday.com Prostate Cancer Section