Making sense of a metastatic breast cancer diagnosis
Research type
Research Study
Full title
What Psychological mechanisms are used to understand how people make sense of a metastatic breast cancer diagnosis?
IRAS ID
312569
Contact name
Andrew Merwood
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
University of Southampton
Duration of Study in the UK
0 years, 9 months, 22 days
Research summary
Currently there is limited research that has investigated how people make sense of receiving a diagnosis of metastatic breast cancer. It is well documented within research and personal accounts shared on support sites that such a diagnosis has huge and often catastrophic impacts on the person. Understanding how a person comes to make sense of this will support the development of guidance on how best to support a person experiencing this.
There will be a two stage identification process. First, individuals diagnosed with metastatic breast cancer will be approached by either their CNS Breast Cancer Nurse or the facilitator of the support group they attend, to ask for consent to be approached by the research team. Second, if consent is given participants will then be given the full study details and consent forms.
Following full consent being sought there will be a screening process whereby key nurses and staff who know the persons well will indicate whether there are any reasons why someone may be unable to participate in this study, for example recent deterioration in physical or mental state, acute distress, or other factors. Recruitment will continue until data saturation has been met, with a minimum of 15 participants.
This study will conduct semi-structured interviews with participants about receiving the diagnosis and how they came to terms with this. Interviews will be held online or face to face depending on participant preference and last for a maximum of 60minutes. The results will be analysed using deductive thematic analysis, which compares key concepts of the dual-processing model and reintegration model against themes identified within the interviews. This research will be completed by September 2023 in order to meet the requirements of the Doctorate in Clinical Psychology at the University of Southampton.REC name
North of Scotland Research Ethics Committee 2
REC reference
22/NS/0131
Date of REC Opinion
7 Nov 2022
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion