A vivência da mulher com diagnóstico de câncer de mama e as implicações da espiritualidade no cuidadoum estudo fenomenológico

Résumé

The present study addressed the subject of experiences of women with a breast cancer diagnosis and implications of spirituality in coping with the disease and care based on the phenomenological perspective. Because of its high prevalence, breast cancer is the most frequent neoplasia in women every year worldwide and also the cause of the highest number of deaths in this population. Few diseases have such a multifactorial etiology and are related to the individual as a whole as breast cancer. The diagnosis impact leads to confrontation, despair, and intense psychological stress, with severe consequences for women’s physical, emotional, social, and spiritual well-being. While experiencing negative feelings such as powerlessness before suffering and the uncertainty transmitted by the disease and the complex treatment, patients face the need to elaborate new concepts. According to their perceptions, they use a variety of coping strategies, including search for meaning and transcendence. Spirituality, as a dimension present in the human perspective, is a fundamental resource in this experience. The present study sought to give women a voice during the phase of confrontation with the diagnosis, recognizing their spiritual needs as part of a comprehensive (spiritual, emotional, and physical) view and taking into account that they were dealing with several conflicts with little time to ponder over questions that required decisions that had to be made regarding treatment and changes that followed diagnosis. The General Objective of the study was: to understand the implications of spirituality in women’s experience of coping with a breast cancer diagnosis. The Specific Objectives were: to elucidate women’s perception regarding their body and their lifeworld when they coped with a breast cancer diagnosis; to recognize women’s spirituality and spiritual needs by using their coping behavior as a starting point and by resorting to spirituality to promote positive emotions; to evaluate women’s spiritual well-being in their breast cancer diagnosis experience by applying the Spiritual Well-Being Questionnaire (SWBQ). Many women, while experiencing the phenomenon of breast cancer diagnosis, were challenged to change values, having the evaluation of the stressor and the disease coping as a starting point. Spirituality was a source of spiritual strength, a stay of positive faith, and a basis of meaning and well-being. The present study confirmed the thesis that, in this complex experience, spirituality is a powerful support mechanism for women who cope with this type of diagnosis, offering a vital stay for them to resignify their experience since the impact triggered by the disease diagnosis. Spirituality offer women the possibility of transcending to emotion and problem-centered coping mechanisms and drives them toward a search for the meaning of life and existential well-being. It is a more positive way to confront the situation, because it allows a coping process based on the meaning of their existence. Therefore, spirituality was present in the journey of the participants, leading them toward a more positive view and introducing them to new perspectives and possibilities. It is a foundational structure that pervades all the course of experiences of these women since diagnosis. It is a structure that boosts and keeps spiritual strength, refreshes life, hope, and purposes, and makes people move forward, redirecting the focus of life and the worldview. Awareness of the value and importance of spirituality must be considered by reaffirming its role in the creation of conditions that favor a better response of these women to the diagnostic phase.