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“The Continuous Shadow of My Mother’s Breast Cancer”: exploring the voice of daughters

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Abstract

Purpose

Women whose mothers have been diagnosed with breast cancer are concerned about their mothers’ illness and fear developing cancer themselves. This study, conducted in Taiwan, aims to understand daughters’ lived experiences after their mothers were diagnosed with breast cancer.

Method

In-depth interviews were conducted to understand daughters’ emotional reactions to their mothers’ diagnoses, their challenges with taking care of their mothers, and their concerns or perceptions regarding their own risks of developing breast cancer. Themes were identified using a phenomenological approach with 18 transcripts.

Results

Six themes were identified: “taking care of my mother is my responsibility”, “desiring sufficient information/support”, “feeling helplessness in providing care”, “expecting a cancer diagnosis in fear”, “anticipating reassurance other than surveillance”, and “worrying about myself is not a priority”. In addition, these themes reflected their concerns about how to support their mothers physically and psychologically, how to manage their own worries about cancer, and how to maintain their health.

Conclusion

The daughters prioritized the responsibility of caring for their mothers physically and psychologically rather than managing their own cancer concerns. Health care professionals should be aware of these priorities to provide education regarding the care of high-risk populations and psychological support to adult daughters.

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Data availability

The data that support the findings of this study are available from the authors upon reasonable request. The data are not publicly available due to privacy or ethical restrictions.

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Funding

S.Y.F. received support from the Ministry of Science and Technology (MOST), Research Project Grant No. 108-2314-B-006-100-MY2.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Nursing, College of Medicine, National Cheng Kung University, University Rd, No. 1, Tainan, 701, Taiwan

    Su-Ying Fang

  2. Department of Psychology, Chung Shan Medical University, and Clinical Psychological Room, Chung Shan Medical University Hospital, Taichung, Taiwan

    Yu-Ming Wang

  3. Department of Surgery, National Cheng Kung University Hospital, Tainan, Taiwan

    Kuo-Ting Lee

Authors
  1. Su-Ying Fang
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  2. Yu-Ming Wang
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  3. Kuo-Ting Lee
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Contributions

All authors were responsible and accountable for all parts of the work related to this study. SYF originated the idea, contributed to the study’s conception and design, collected data, and acquired the funding. SYF and YMW analyzed and interpreted the data. KTL provided the resources to recruit participants and provided feedback on the preliminary results. SYF and YMW contributed to the writing of the manuscript. All authors revised the manuscript and gave their approval for the final version to be published.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Su-Ying Fang.

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Conflict of interest

The authors have no conflicts of interest to declare.

Ethical approval

Ethical approval was obtained from the Institutional Review Boards of the National Cheng Kung University Hospital (BER-107-392). All procedures involving human participants were performed in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and the 1964 Helsinki Declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

Informed consent

Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study. Consent for publication The participants signed informed consent regarding publishing their data and interview content.

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Fang, SY., Wang, YM. & Lee, KT. “The Continuous Shadow of My Mother’s Breast Cancer”: exploring the voice of daughters. Support Care Cancer 30, 1473–1481 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00520-021-06551-9

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00520-021-06551-9

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