When a member of a family is diagnosed with cancer the impacts on a family can be dramatic but is it necessarily all “doom and gloom?”
PhD student Janelle Levesque has just started research investigating the effects that having a parent with cancer has on adults, and, in particular whether there have been positive benefits such as a changed outlook on life.
“Previous research suggests that patients and their spouses are able to find the ‘silver lining’ when dealing with cancer,” said Janelle, a member of Charles Sturt University’s Institute for Land, Water and Society.
“However we don’t know whether or not this is the case with their adult children who have experienced parental cancer.”
Janelle said it was important to consider the psychological impact of chronic and terminal illness on the family network and that there has been a growing recognition of family members as secondary patients.
“However there has also been an almost exclusive focus on the negative impact of illness in terms of outcomes like depression and high stress,” said Janelle. “This limited approach is short-sighted. There are a lot of potentially positive changes that may arise that need to be investigated.”
Janelle is planning to interview adults whose parents have been diagnosed with cancer to discover how they adjusted to their parent’s illness and what the positive outcomes may be. People interested in taking part in her research can contact her by email on jlevesque@csu.edu.au or by phone on 02 6971 1919.
She hopes the knowledge gained from her study can be used to inform support services for family members. Her research is being supervised by Institute members Dr Darryl Maybery and Dr Kent Patrick.
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