Feeling states: a new approach to understanding how children and adolescents with cancer experience symptoms.

Children with cancer experience short- and long-term symptoms. The symptoms can escalate child and family suffering and impact on their quality of life. Children's perspectives of their cancer symptoms have been increasingly investigated; however, there is still much more to be learned from children with cancer. Accordingly, a qualitative study that sought to arrive at an interpretive description of children's and adolescent's perspectives about their cancer symptoms was conducted, with a focus on exploring what children and adolescents with cancer think and feel about their cancer symptoms. Open-ended individual interviews were conducted with 13 children and adolescents with cancer. The patients ranged in age between 9 and 17 years. Data were analyzed by the constant comparative method of data analysis. Five themes emerged from the data: (1) It is all together, (2) Shared and unique ways of feeling, (3) I am feeling this way because..., (4) Feelings about my feelings, and (5) It is hard to explain. The findings reinforce that children have a lot to tell us about how cancer makes them feel but may have difficulty communicating how they feel to nurses and other healthcare providers.