‘Staying cool, calm and positive’: A dialogical narrative analysis of emotional reactions in narratives about operable lung cancer

Abstract

BackgroundPatients with lung cancer suffer from physical, psychosocial and particularly emotional challenges. Twenty‐five percent of patients with lung cancer are offered surgery as a potential cure. Nevertheless, 40% of surgically treated patients will experience recurrence. Paradoxically, research shows a dominant narrative of operable lung cancer patients ‘being lucky’, which silences other narratives about suffering, worries and emotional challenges.AimTo explore narratives about operable lung cancer, particularly emotional reactions to illness and suffering in these narratives.MethodsA qualitative design was applied. Six women and four men diagnosed with operable lung cancer were included from one university hospital in Denmark and interviewed 1 month after surgery using active interviews. The interviews were subject to dialogical narrative analysis. The theoretical foundation is social constructivism, with socio‐narratological inspiration.FindingsA typology of three emotional narratives emerged: ‘staying cool’, ‘staying calm’ and ‘staying positive’. All three types of narrative are characterised by managing emotional reactions. Staying cool is characterised by not showing emotional reactions; staying calm narratives acknowledge emotional reactions, but that they need to be managed so that they do not burden relatives; and the last, staying positive, is characterised by managing emotional reactions in a positive direction. Together this typology of three emotional narratives revealed that operable lung cancer patients are under normative pressure from these socially preferred narratives of ideal emotional reactions to lung cancer.ConclusionA typology of three emotional narratives were identified and can be called ‘feeling rules’ that guide patients after lung cancer surgery to manage their emotions. Consequently, if patients do not live up to these three emotional narratives of staying cool, calm and positive, they may be socially isolated and restricted from access to support.