Hilary Sircus
Nova Southeastern University, USA
Title: Resilience and Posttraumatic Growth in Cancer Patients: A Literature Review
Biography
Biography: Hilary Sircus
Abstract
Many people with cancer experience multiple stressors that may stem from both the illness and different external factors. When faced with a challenging or traumatic life event such as cancer, people may experience post traumatic growth and/or resilience. To better care for cancer patients, their friends, and family, it is important to understand the elements that may influence resilience and personal growth during the cancer experience. The purpose of this paper is to provide synthesis of the literature related to resilience and post traumatic growth for those with cancer.
Peer-reviewed research databases were searched to gather information on the relationship between post traumatic growth, resilience, and cancer. Search terms and keywords included the following: post traumatic growth, resilience, cancer, people living with cancer, resilience and cancer, post traumatic growth and resilience post trauma, post traumatic growth and cancer experience, protective factors for resilience, protective factors for post traumatic growth, risk factors for post-traumatic stress, children and adolescents with post traumatic growth, and resilience training. Upon searching these terms, a total of 12,630 articles were found. Forty-nine of these research articles met my criteria and were used in this paper. Inclusion criteria consisted of research articles from scholarly journals that addressed the purpose of this paper and reported quantifiable data. The literature examined for this review was obtained from the search engines Google Scholar, PsychInfo, PsychARTICLES, and ProQuest Central. The reviewed articles will be referred to and discussed throughout this paper