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Older people with incurable cancer: Existential meaning-making from a life-span perspective

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 June 2015

Sigrid Helene Kjørven Haug ,
Lars J. Danbolt ,
Kari Kvigne  and
Valerie DeMarinis
Sigrid Helene Kjørven Haug*
Affiliation:
Innlandet Hospital Trust, Center for Psychology of Religion, MF–The Norwegian School of Theology, Ottestad, Norway
Lars J. Danbolt
Affiliation:
Innlandet Hospital Trust, Center for Psychology of Religion, MF–The Norwegian School of Theology, Ottestad, Norway
Kari Kvigne
Affiliation:
Hedmark University College, Department of Public Health, Institute of Nursing and Mental Health, Elverum, Norway, and Nesna University College, Institute for Nursing Education, Nordland, Norway
Valerie DeMarinis
Affiliation:
IMPACT Research Program, Public Mental Health Promotion Area, Uppsala University, Sweden, and Innlandet Hospital Trust, Center for Psychology of Religion, Ottestad, Norway
*
Address correspondence and reprint requests to: Sigrid Helene Kjørven Haug, Innlandet Hospital Trust, Centre for Psychology of Religion, P.B. 68, 2312, Ottestad, Norway. E-mail: [email protected]
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Abstract

Objective:

An increasing number of older people in Western countries are living with incurable cancer, receiving palliative care from specialized healthcare contexts. The aim of our article was to understand how they experience the existential meaning-making function in daily living from a life-span perspective.

Method:

Some 21 participants (12 men and 9 women), aged 70–88, were interviewed in a semistructured framework. They were recruited from somatic hospitals in southeastern Norway. We applied the model of selective optimization with compensation (SOC) from life-span developmental psychology in a deductive manner to explore the participants' life-oriented adaptive strategies. A meaning component was added to the SOC model.

Results:

The participants experienced the existential meaning-making function on two levels. On a superordinate level, it was an important component for interpreting and coordinating the adaptive strategies of SOC for reaching the most important goals in daily living. The existential meaning-making framework provided for a comprehensive understanding of resilience, allowing for both restoration and growth components to be identified. The second level was related to strategy, in that the existential meaning-making function was involved in a complex interaction with behavioral resources and resilience, leading to continuation of goals and more realistic goal adjustments. A few experienced existential meaning-making dysfunction.

Significance of results:

The modified SOC model was seen as applicable for palliative care in specialized healthcare contexts. Employing the existential meaning-making framework with its complementary understanding of resilience as growth potential to the SOC model's restoration potential can help older people to identify how they make meaning and how this influences their adaptation process to being incurably sick.

Keywords

Palliative careGerontologySelective optimization with compensationExistential meaning-makingResilience
Type
Original Articles
Information
Palliative & Supportive Care , Volume 14 , Issue 1 , February 2016 , pp. 20 - 32
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2015 

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