Anything but simple: the disclosure practices of children with cancer in residential camp and non-camp settings

ABSTRACT

Self-disclosure is a psychosocial process in which individuals decide who, what, where, and how they tell others about their illness. This study utilized a qualitative secondary analysis to investigate whether and how children and youth disclose their illness to their peers. A thematic analysis was undertaken to analyze 21 interviews completed by children and youth who experienced cancer and were from two summer camps in Ontario, Canada. This resulted in four themes including talking about cancer, thinking about cancer, attitude toward illness, and social environments and relationships. The findings affirm that illness disclosure is complex and has several contributing factors.

Acknowledgments

We would like to give a special thank you to the HEART Lab Team at Holland Bloorview Kids Rehabilitation Hospital for their support through this research process as well as the Ryerson (X) University MA in Early Childhood Studies program.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data availability statement

The authors confirm that the data supporting the findings of this study are available within the article. We also attached a supplementary file of our code tree to illustrate our coding process. However, the complete data set is not publicly available to protect the personal identities of participants and to comply with Research Ethics Board (REB) requirements.

Supplementary material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed on the publisher’s website

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Holland Bloorview Kids Rehabilitation Hospital Foundation. Dr. Roberta L. Woodgate is supported by a Tier 1 Canadian Research Chair (CRC) in Child and Family Engagement in Health Research and Healthcare (CIHR - Canadian Research Chair- 950-231845).