SENCANCER: Sensing Iillness in Everyday Life: Care-Seeking and Perception of Symptoms Among Chronic Cancer Patients, 2015

The purpose of the SENCANCER project was to investigate how people who have had cancer notice and experience symptoms and bodily changes. We have investigated how everyday life developed, what experiences lead to consulting a doctor, who is used as a help in their social networks (therapeutic pathways) and how to experience the transition from healthy to worried and ill. In the project we also looked at how people who previously had cancer experienced different health services at different levels in the healthcare sector.
Two PhD candiates have conducted parallel studies focusing on urban and rural areas in order to make comparative analyzes. Methodologically, both studies are based on anthropological fieldwork. The two PhD candidates performed fieldwork in two different places from January 2014 to January 2015. The one, in a larger municipal municipality, and the other in a smaller rural municipality, both in Northern Norway.
We came to different understandings of how bodily symptoms are both interpreted and ignored, which are important when it comes to consulting a doctor. Another finding regards who the informants share their existential uncertainty with and how it constitutes social relations. How nature and homeliness in landscapes are used as dealing with concern, and howto use their social relationships differently with concern regarding the return of cancer are other significant findings. All studies provide an extended understanding of post-cancer life in various social contexts.

For further information about ” SENCANCER: Sensing Iillness in Everyday Life: Care-Seeking and Perception of Symptoms Among Chronic Cancer Patients, 2015”, please contact the Principal Investigator.