‘There’s a before and an after’: effects of a personal history of cancer on perception of cancer risks and adoption of behaviours

Abstract

In this article, we aim to better understand how a personal history of cancer influences perceptions of environmental risk factors for cancers and adoptions of health-related behaviours. Semi-structured individual and group interviews were conducted with French individuals with (n = 21) and without (n = 16) a personal history of cancer using the same topic guide. Interviews were transcribed, coded and analysed using a comparative approach. Our participants with and without a history of cancer tended to perceive the same environmental factors as causes of cancers, in particular pesticides and smoking. However, individuals without a history of cancer emphasised electromagnetic waves and sun exposure as causes of cancers while participants with a history of cancer emphasised unbalanced diet and stress/negative emotions. Our participants with a history of cancer tended to mention more factors than participants without. Finally, participants with a personal history of cancer all described themselves as adopting at least one behaviour mentioned as ‘healthier’, often following their cancer experience, while very few participants without a history of cancer mentioned adopting these behaviours. Participants with a history of cancer tended to be more concerned about environmental risk factors for cancers and about preventing cancers through adopting risk-reducing health-related behaviours than participants without a history of cancer. Our findings are consistent with and develop the idea that a personal experience of cancer can alter an individual’s 'experience and life world'. We also observed similarities between individuals with and without a personal history of cancer. Our contextual findings need to be confirmed by further research.

Keywords:

• cancer
• risk perception
• behaviours
• environmental factors
• qualitative methods

Acknowledgements

The authors thank the participants of the study for the time they took, Louisa Blair for her help with the editing of the article, the reviewers for their relevant comments and Patrick Brown for his thorough readings and relevant suggestions.

This work was supported by the Health Academic Research Community of the Rhone-Alps Region and the Fondation de France under Grant 2013-40888. Funding agreements ensured authors’ independence in the collection, analysis and interpretation of the data as well as writing and decision to submit the article for publication.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Fondation de France [2013-40888];Health Academic Research Community of the Rhone-Alps Region.