'Being in the same boat': ethnographic insights into an adolescent cancer unit.
Cancer may be considered a particularly challenging diagnosis for adolescents. Treatment for adolescents in the United Kingdom may be provided in paediatric or adult settings or, more rarely, in specialist adolescent cancer units. An ethnographic approach was adopted to gather 'insiders' views of one such unit using in-depth interviews with patients, parents and professionals, as well as non-participant observation of key events. Two data themes 'cancer and the cancer unit' and 'changes over time' are discussed in this paper. Benefits of the unit included shared understandings and the manner in which the privations of adolescent cancer were contained and managed by those involved.
Department of Nursing, St. Bartholomew School of Nursing, City University/ University College London Hospitals NHS Trust, Middlesex Hospital, Mortimer Street, London EC 1A 7QN, UK. daniel.kelly@uclh.org
Daniel
D
Kelly
Susie
S
Pearce
Anne
A
Mulhall
D000223:Adaptation, Psychological; D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000884:Anthropology, Cultural; D001291:Attitude of Health Personnel; D001294:Attitude to Health; D001828:Body Image; D005190:Family / Q000523:psychology; D005260:Female; D006757:Hospital Units / Q000458:organization & administration*; D006801:Humans; D007400:Interprofessional Relations; D008016:Life Change Events; D008297:Male; D009013:Morale; D009369:Neoplasms / Q000523:psychology*; D015404:Nursing Methodology Research; D009769:Object Attachment; D016522:Oncology Service, Hospital; D015279:Organizational Culture; D010564:Personnel, Hospital / Q000523:psychology; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D013997:Time Factors; D006113:United Kingdom