Teenager Diagnosed with Cancer - Essay Example

"Teenager Diagnosed with Cancer" is a perfect example of a paper on cancer.
Cases of children and teenagers being diagnosed with cancer prove to be detrimental to the social life of teenagers. The parents face several challenges while trying to provide the required physical and psychological care to their children. Both the parents and the teenagers have to deal with various challenges that come with a diagnosis from a state of health to a state of having a chronic disease. The life of a teenager is a transition period that comes along with various emotional and physical challenges. Appearance and social life matter most to a teenager.

Undertaking qualitative research was essential in an attempt to create a comparison between the efficiency of applying psychosocial support to the use of nonpsychosocial support mechanisms. Such research is vital in the quest to establish means and strategies to understand and offer help to these teenagers as they learn to live with the condition. The research was undertaken using a structured interview that ensured the collection of vital information such as demographics, symptoms, and adaptation using various mechanisms. One of the positive outcomes that come along with the use of this technique of research is its flexibility thus allowing diversity when conduction the interviews. Formulation of some questions was essential to provide guidance towards obtaining the required information about the matter. The following questions were formulated.

• What is the effect of cancer diagnosis among teenagers?
• What are some of the psychosocial support offered if any support is offered?
• What happens if the psychosocial effect is not offered?
• How does this diagnosis affect the parents of teenagers?
• What is the role of close friends and family towards the wellbeing of the teenager?

The formulation of a PICOT question was also essential in the research. Among teenagers with newly diagnosed cancer (P), how does offer psychosocial support (I) compared to nonpsychosocial support (C) affect their long-term coping mechanism (O)? Teenagers with newly diagnosed cancer face various challenges. A comparison of the two forms o supports is discussed with each part tackled separately according to statistics.

The research on the well-being of the teenagers diagnosed with cancer varied statistically with others having normal scores with minimum deviations from the mean. Some of the teenagers had psychological dysfunctions while others had a near-normal life. One of the factors associated with the good maintenance of the quality of life is the family characteristics. Normal treatment and social activities are crucial to the emotional well-being of an individual diagnosed with cancer. Psychosocial support importance is seen in the various physical changes that take place on the body of an individual as medications and therapy are administered. The changes affect the quality of life of an individual thus creating self-esteem issues that need care psychological support (Ruch, 2012).

Research by Kathleen Ruccione provides crucial information regarding what strategies work in handling teenagers. In this case teenagers with cancer, the diagnosis is the main concern. The solution to the problem among teenagers is more cognitive or rather focused on handling a specific problem compared to emotional focused. The problem, in this case, is cancer at an early and the emotional trauma associated with the problem. In this case of research by Kathleen, 18% of the psychosocial help was functional compared to the others. It is, therefore, evident that the psychosocial support has some positive effects upon the life of a teenager diagnosed with cancer compared to the situation where no psychosocial support is offered.