Types of work young adults perform to adjust to a cancer diagnosis and treatment.

Abstract

e24179 Background: Patients and their caregivers perform work (i.e., demanding and arduous labor that takes resources and coordination to address) to manage their illness, relationships, and lives. A growing body of psychosocial research has investigated the communication work performed by young adults (18-39 years old at diagnosis; YAs) and their caregivers as they adjust to cancer treatment and survivorship. However, to our knowledge, no studies have examined how the four types of work identified through Theory of Illness Trajectories (i.e., everyday, illness-related, biographical, and communication) interact within cancer survivorship. Thus, the study purpose was to investigate how and why YAs describe their efforts to manage life along the cancer trajectory as work or labor. Methods: We conducted a qualitative secondary analysis leveraging three separate qualitative interview datasets that sought to describe and explain similar psychosocial aspects of the YA cancer experience. Two specific interview questions: 1) “What advice would you give to another person your age who received a similar diagnosis?” and 2) “What did you learn from your cancer experience that you wish you knew when you were diagnosed?” shaped our thematic analysis. We applied the Theory of Illness Trajectories in the open coding phase, where everyday-life work referred to recurring existing responsibilities (e.g., employment, childcare); illness work related to cancer-management tasks like taking medication and seeing physicians; biographical work involved one’s cognitive efforts to reconstruct their identity, and communication work involved the demanding use of communication to manage identities, share information, or solicit support. During axial coding, each author reviewed one-third of the data individually, making note of units that could be classified as themes related to each type of work. Results: A total of 112 participants completed qualitative interviews across the three studies. Most (71%) were female, and mean age was 26 years. Most received a diagnosis of lymphoma (33.0%), leukemia (17.9%), and breast cancer (11.6%). Data analyses are still ongoing; we are currently meeting regularly to reach consensus on our axial codes. Our final abstract will include findings from our selective coding phase, which will allow us to examine comparisons and interactions between types of work. Conclusions: Additional goals of our innovative qualitative secondary analysis are to a) to identify the most salient subtypes of biographical, illness-related, everyday, and communication work in the YA cancer context and b) to better understand how the four types of work described by theory of illness trajectories interact and whether they facilitate or hinder the performance of additional types of work.