title: Surviving childhood leukemia in a Latin culture: an explorative study based on young adults' written narratives.
abstract: This study investigated memories of childhood leukemia conveyed by survivors belonging to a Latin culture, exploring whether benefit findings was spontaneously reported, as by non-Latin survivors. Three hundred patients previously treated for leukemia were contacted by post/e-mail and asked to write freely about their illness experience. The 106 letters received were analyzed for narrative structure and content, according to a grounded theory approach. Participants expressed most of the themes conveyed by childhood cancer survivors in non-Latin countries, and benefit finding was spontaneously reported. To the latter, the usefulness of creating and maintaining personal narratives on cancer experience, sustained by health care professionals, is discussed.
authors.affiliation: a Department of Biomedical Sciences for Health , Università degli Studi di Milano , Milan , Italy.
authors.forename: Lucia
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Zannini
authors.forename: Cesarina
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Cattaneo
authors.forename: Momcilo
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Jankovic
authors.forename: Giuseppe
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Masera
mesh_terms: D000223:Adaptation, Psychological; D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D003466:Cultural Characteristics; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007558:Italy; D007938:Leukemia / Q000523:psychology* / Q000628:therapy; D008297:Male; D033262:Narration; D017741:Survivors / Q000523:psychology* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: Latin culture; benefit finding; childhood leukemia; qualitative study; survivorship; written narrative