Communicatively constructing resilience: Exploring family resilience in the experience of hereditary cancer

Abstract

Objective

The goal was to explore how families communicate to cope with hereditary cancer conditions and identify factors that may enhance resilience and recommended decision-making.

Background

Families with Hereditary Breast and Ovarian Cancer syndrome (HBOC), Lynch syndrome (LS), and Li-Fraumeni syndrome (LFS) have an increased lifetime risk of developing cancer. We use the communication theory of resilience (CTR) to examine how families engage in resilience and make health decisions about hereditary cancer risks over time.

Method

We conducted 42 dyadic interviews with families with HBOC, LS, and LFS. Themes emerged through qualitative analysis for each of the resilience processes outlined by CTR (crafting normalcy, communication networks, identity anchors, alternative logics, and foregrounding productive action while legitimizing negative feelings), illustrating how family members manage stressors associated with hereditary cancer over time.

Results

Participants described enacting each of the five CTR processes to manage the acute and chronic stressors associated with hereditary cancer. We described themes that emerged within each of the five resilience processes.

Conclusion

Findings demonstrate the ways in which families managing hereditary cancer risks enact resilience processes and how these processes may have a complex relationship to coping and medical decision-making.

Implications

Findings demonstrate areas for intervention to support familial resilience.