Making New Meanings of Being in the World After Treatment for Oral Cancer

• Published in: Qualitative health research Vol. 19; no. 8; pp. 1076 - 1086
• Main Authors: Röing, Marta, Hirsch, Jan-Michaél, Holmström, Inger, Schuster, Marja
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Los Angeles, CA SAGE Publications 01.08.2009; SAGE PUBLICATIONS, INC
• Subjects: Activities of Daily Living; Adaptation, Psychological; Aged; Aged, 80 and over; attitude to life; Basic needs; body image; cancer; Eating; Female; Gadamer; Health risk assessment; Health technology assessment; Heidegger; hermeneutics; Humans; Identity; Interpersonal Relations; Interviews as Topic; Male; Meaning; MEDICIN; MEDICINE; Middle Aged; Mouth; Mouth Neoplasms - psychology; Mouth Neoplasms - therapy; NATURAL SCIENCES; NATURVETENSKAP; oral; Oral cancer; Qualitative Research; Quality of Life; Ricoeur; Self Concept; Treatment; Sweden; Heidegger; cancer; oral; hermeneutics; Gadamer; Ricoeur
• ISSN: 1049-7323; 1552-7557; 1552-7557
• DOI: 10.1177/1049732309341192

When the mouth is affected by cancer, difficulties in satisfying basic human needs such as eating, tasting, swallowing, and speaking might arise, and the existential significance of the mouth might become obvious. How does it feel to live with these difficulties? What does it mean to be a human being living with the consequences of oral cancer? Five patients with oral cancer were interviewed a median time of 4 years after the beginning of treatment. A hermeneutic research approach was used to understand, explain, and interpret the transcribed interviews and showed how the consequences of oral cancer affected the being-in-the-world of the participants in three ways: existing as oneself, existing in the eyes of others, and existing with others. Against the background of the philosophy of Martin Heidegger, these findings illuminate how essential the mouth is to a human being's identity and existence.