Surviving Childhood Leukemia in a Latin Culture: An Explorative Study Based on Young Adults’ Written Narratives

Abstract

This study investigated memories of childhood leukemia conveyed by survivors belonging to a Latin culture, exploring whether benefit findings was spontaneously reported, as by non-Latin survivors. Three hundred patients previously treated for leukemia were contacted by post/e-mail and asked to write freely about their illness experience. The 106 letters received were analyzed for narrative structure and content, according to a grounded theory approach. Participants expressed most of the themes conveyed by childhood cancer survivors in non-Latin countries, and benefit finding was spontaneously reported. To the latter, the usefulness of creating and maintaining personal narratives on cancer experience, sustained by health care professionals, is discussed.

KEYWORDS:

• benefit finding
• childhood leukemia
• Latin culture
• qualitative study
• survivorship
• written narrative

Notes

¹In the 1980s, military service was compulsory for Italian males. Only disabled and ill people were exempt from duty.

Additional information

Funding

Comitato Maria Letizia Verga partially funded this study.