People with advanced cancer and their care givers in conflict over food

Hopkinson, J.B. (2007) People with advanced cancer and their care givers in conflict over food. In The 2007 International Nursing Research Conference: Book of Abstracts. Royal College of Nursing. p. 106 .

Abstract

Background: Conflict over food can be aproblem as end of life approaches (Holden, 1991; Meares, 1997). This paper is the first to describe strategies that patients with advanced cancer and their caregivers use to manage eating related conflict.
Method: The research was an in-depth case study of weight loss and eating difficulties in people with advanced cancer. The study participants included 32 patient-caregiver pairs receiving palliative home care in the South of England in either 2003 or 2005. Methods of data collection included semi-structured interviews that were analysed using both content and thematic approaches. An emergent theme was ‘conflict’. This paper reports an analysis and interpretation of the conflict data.
Findings: Conflict over food had arisen between 26 of the patient-caregiver pairs. There were four different pathways to the conflict: ‘battle for control’, ‘competing goals’, ‘competing understandings’ and ‘feeling uncared for’. Strategies used to manage life with conflict over food, such as ‘education’, could lead to conflict resolution. When conflict resolution had been achieved, the conflict could be seen as acatalyst that aided adaptation to life with eating related problems. In other words, conflict could be beneficial.
Conclusions: Facilitating resolution in conflict over food may be an important role for cancer care nurses. A follow-on study is now in progress. This study will test an intervention intended to help patients and their care givers manage eating related conflict.

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