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Oncology
Research
Experiences of Australian men diagnosed with advanced prostate cancer: a qualitative study
  1. Suzanne K Chambers1,2,3,4,5,6,
  2. Melissa K Hyde1,2,
  3. Kirstyn Laurie1,2,
  4. Melissa Legg1,2,
  5. Mark Frydenberg3,7,8,
  6. Ian D Davis3,9,
  7. Anthony Lowe1,3,4,
  8. Jeff Dunn1,2,3,5
  1. 1 Menzies Health Institute Queensland, Griffith University, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia
  2. 2 Cancer Research Centre, Cancer Council Queensland, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia
  3. 3 Australian and New Zealand Urogenital and Prostate (ANZUP) Cancer Trials Group, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
  4. 4 Prostate Cancer Foundation of Australia, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
  5. 5 Institute for Resilient Regions, University of Southern Queensland, Toowoomba, Queensland, Australia
  6. 6 Health & Wellness Institute, Edith Cowan University, Perth, Western Australia, Australia
  7. 7 Department of Urology, Monash Health, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
  8. 8 Department of Surgery, Faculty of Medicine, Monash University, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
  9. 9 Eastern Health Clinical School, Monash University, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
  1. Correspondence to Professor Suzanne K Chambers; suzanne.chambers{at}griffith.edu.au

Abstract

Objective To explore men’s lived experience of advanced prostate cancer (PCa) and preferences for support.

Design Cross-sectional qualitative study applying open-ended surveys and interviews conducted between June and November 2016. Interviews audio-recorded and transcribed verbatim and analysed from an interpretive phenomenological perspective.

Setting Australia, nation-wide.

Participants 39 men diagnosed with advanced PCa (metastatic or castration-resistant biochemical progression) were surveyed with 28 men subsequently completing a semistructured in depth telephone interview.

Results Thematic analysis of interviews identified two organising themes: lived experience and supportive care. Lived experience included six superordinate themes: regret about late diagnosis and treatment decisions, being discounted in the health system, fear/uncertainty about the future, acceptance of their situation, masculinity and treatment effects. Supportive care included five superordinate themes: communication, care coordination, accessible care, shared experience/peer support and involvement of their partner/family.

Conclusions Life course and the health and social context of PCa influence men’s experiences of advanced disease. Multimodal interventions integrating peer support and specialist nurses are needed that more closely articulate with men’s expressed needs.

  • prostate cancer
  • advanced cancer
  • metastatic
  • masculinities
  • supportive care needs
  • life course

This is an Open Access article distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/

https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjopen-2017-019917

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    Footnotes

    • Contributors SKC, JD and MKH conceived the study, developed the interview protocol, undertook the analyses and interpretation and led manuscript development. KL recruited and interviewed participants, undertook analysis and contributed to writing the manuscript. ML recruited and interviewed participants. MF, IDD and AL contributed to data interpretation. All authors contributed to revisions and approved the final manuscript.

    • Funding This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors. IDD is supported by an NHMRC Practitioner Fellowship(APP1102604).

    • Competing interests None declared.

    • Patient consent Obtained.

    • Ethics approval Ethical approval was obtained from the Griffith University Human Research Ethics Committee (Reference number 2016/418).

    • Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.

    • Data sharing statement The authors have full control of all primary data and agree to allow the journal to review their data if requested.

    • Correction notice This article has been corrected since it first published. In the Abstract, "(metastatic or castration-resistant biochemical regression)" has been corrected to "(metastatic or castration-resistant biochemical progression)".