A family crisis, such as a parent's chronic illness like cancer, can be a devastating experience for children, particularly during their dependent years. While some children experience impaired psychological functioning, others report positive adaptations, including personal growth, strengthened family relationships, and an enhanced appreciation of family life. This evidence suggests that posttraumatic growth can occur as children navigate a parent's cancer. Drawing on Tedeschi et al.'s theoretical framework of posttraumatic growth, this study aimed to explore the types of experiences that contribute to posttraumatic growth, based on young adults' retrospective accounts of experiencing parental cancer in childhood.
The study employed a qualitative interpretive approach, interviewing seven young adults aged 18-25. All participants had experienced their parental cancer journey beginning at the age of nine or later. Prior to data collection, written consent was obtained from each participant. The interview questions explored their history of parental cancer, the coping strategies they employed during that period, and how they interpreted and reflected on both the experience and their coping processes in retrospect. All interview data were transcribed verbatim and analyzed thematically.
The results revealed five types of family experiences that facilitated the development of posttraumatic growth: (a) the shocking or unexpected experiences of parental physical weakness or emotional breakdown; (b) feelings of guilt arising from the struggle between personal issues and parental illness; (c) witnessing the dying process; (d) parental disclosure—limited to patient mothers—of past experiences, including cancer coping processes or growing-up history; and (e) establishing boundaries between personal and family issues. These experiences reflected the occurrence of incongruence that challenged children's expectations or assumptions about parental illness, their identity as children, and the social world, triggering reappraisals and leading to the integration of adversity into a new reality.